Etude House Sweet Recipe Cupcake All Over Color Review & Swatches

Etude House Sweet Recipe Cupcake All Over Color was released in five shades earlier this Summer with the Etude House Sweet Recipe Collection. Etude House Sweet Recipe Cupcake All Over Color are a cute little product as well as a multitasking one as Etude House claims you can use them on cheeks, lips, and eyes!

I personally love the idea of a multitasking product and both the promo image of the texture of the product as well as the idea of using them in a variety of different ways really interested me. For example, the gorgeous tangerine shade looks like it would make an incredible blush as well as an eyeshadow!

They are a little misleading though…

Looking at promo images of Etude House Sweet Recipe Cupcake All Over Color you’ll notice that they appear to be some sort of gel-like product or even a creamy formula of some sort. They are indeed cream but the photos are terribly misleading as the product is a densely packed cream which completely floored me. I admit I was a bit disappointed they weren’t some sort of creamy mousse-like consistency.

Sigh.

Oh well!

Blueberry Cheese Cake

Orange Choux Cake

Peach Sugar Cake

Raspberry Mousse Cake

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

Raspberry Mousse Cake, Strawberry Chiffon Cake, and Orange Choux Cake

Blueberry Cheese Cake and Peach Sugar Cake

Each comes in a cute little cupcake style tin with a raised 3D lid that resembles a pastry tart of some sort. The packaging is darling especially if you navigate towards more kawaii beauty products. Granted if Chanel and Dior are your deal and you’re used to elegant packaging obviously these are going to look like some sort of toy or little girl’s makeup to you. However, if you have a bit of an inner child you’ll likely love them. I’ve personally never grown up so I think they are absolutely darling.

On that note I will say the packaging is not well constructed and the possibility of the cream drying out or getting harder is a likely occurrence. I’ve had them a few months now, since the release, and the formula seems a-ok but I see them at some point going bad or drying out. Hopefully I’m wrong but I feel like the lids aren’t providing enough of an airtight seal to keep the product its freshest.

The other issue I had with these was the shade selection. As I said I purchased all five but I only was able to actually use one of the five. Most of the shades are lighter pastels that I think many skin tones will find challenging to use as a blush. Shades like light lilac, light pastel peach, bubble gum pink, etc….are quite hard to use as blush in my opinion. Which probably has you wondering well what about lipgloss or eyeshadow? I’ll get to that shortly….These have a fuzzy peach-like flavor and scent on some of the darker shades where as the lighter ones taste more like bubblegum to me if you were curious about the flavor/fragrance.

As a blush these are easy to blend and use on cheeks. They have a lighter creamy texture that blends out quite easily on cheeks for a nice natural flush. Some of the shades as I said above are too crazy for my skin tone….For example Strawberry Chiffon Cake is a bright bubble gum pink and this works nice enough but it might be a tad too pink and baby dollish for me. Other shades like Blueberry Cheese Cake, a light lilac, is very difficult for me to use as a blush and a bit unflattering and finally Peach Sugar Cake is too pastel a peach for me. The two shades that did work were Orange Choux Cake which is a bright orange and Raspberry Mousse Cake that’s a reddish tangerine. On my cheeks they have a long wear which is something to say because cream blush typically fades away fast for me.

On my eyes I thought these worked ok as a base if you want to add powder on top but on their own they are muted colors and barely show up! They apply easily enough and build well on my cheeks but doing so on my lids was a challenging and again, the colors aren’t really great shadow shades as they are either too bright or too pastel for me.

On my lips I experienced the same problem…the colors are just too muted for some reason. Also again, I felt like the shades were just unflattering as lip colors and I also felt the formula was very drying on my lips.

I think in theory they sound like a delightful product plus add to that very cute packaging and you have instant lemming hard on. Or at least that’s the case for me. With a stronger shade selection that’s more universally flattering and a better texture that would be suitable for lips as well as eyes and not just cheeks they would probably win my heart.

But as is I can only use them as a blush…!

I had high hopes for these but they didn’t quite live up to my idea of them.

I wouldn’t recommend skipping them completely! Grab up one or two shades but I definitely wouldn’t advise all five shades as you can definately get yourself a far superior cream blush than this.

Tried ’em?

Love to hear your thoughts!

F2Plus1 on E-bay sells all the shades at a fairly reasonable close to retail cost (I am not affiliated with the seller).