How to choose the blush that suits you best

Blush gives your face the most life for the least effort. The right shade mimics your natural flush; the wrong one looks like a stain. To get it right, think about three things: colour, texture and placement.

Colour: copy your natural flush

A useful trick: gently pinch your cheeks, or look at your face after a workout. That pink, peach or reddish tone is the starting point for your ideal blush.

• Fair, cool skin: soft pinks and dusty roses.
• Fair, warm skin: peach and soft coral.
• Medium skin: rich peaches, brownish pinks and corals.
• Deep skin: saturated shades such as raspberry, plum, burnt orange or terracotta. Pastels can turn ashy.

Orgasm is the icon for a reason: its peachy pink with golden shimmer suits a wide range of undertones.

Texture

• Powder: the easiest to blend and the longest-wearing on oily skin.
• Cream or liquid: a more natural, dewy effect; ideal for dry or mature skin. A little goes a long way.
• Shimmer: adds light, but on textured skin or visible pores a satin blush is kinder.

Highly pigmented liquid blushes need just one dot per cheek, blended out with fingers or a damp sponge.

Placement for your face shape

• Round face: slightly above the apples, blended diagonally towards the temple. It lengthens the face.
• Long face: on the apples, blended horizontally. It softens the length.
• Square face: in soft circles on the apples to round things off.
• Oval face: almost anything works; the classic is along the cheekbone towards the temple.

Our try-on places blush high on the cheek, between the apple and the cheekbone, and clips it to the outline of your face so it never lands on your hair. You can dial the intensity up or down with the slider.

Intensity: less is more

Start with a little and build. If you overdo it, blend with a clean brush or a touch of foundation. In the blush try-on, start low and increase until it looks like "your colour, only better".

Do blush and lipstick need to match?

Not necessarily, but it helps if they share a temperature: peach blush with coral or warm nude lips; pink blush with pink or berry lips. The looks in the try-on automatically pair blushes that harmonise with the lipstick you pick.

Common mistakes

• Placing blush too close to the nose — it reads as redness.
• Choosing a shade that's too pale for deep skin.
• Leaving hard edges instead of blending.