Benefit Cha Cha Tint

My love affair with Benefit Cosmetics goes back a Very Long Way. It was the heady days of the early 2000s and I was a student. A poor poverty stricken student. So what did I do with my days? Obviously I wasn't in university because I was a poor, poverty stricken English student so I only had about six hours of lectures and seminars a week (score). And I wasn't reading the books I was supposed to be reading because who does that? So I pretty much spent every waking hour, wandering around Boots and Debenhams in Nottingham, fiddling about with the make up counters. And my favourite? Benefit.



I'd read about Bad Gal and BeneTint of course but there were so may other wonderful things. The Bathina range, the Eye Bright pencil, Playsticks foundation, my beloved It Stick, not to mention High Beam, FY EYE (which I ended up bulk buying in Las Vegas two years later), Kitten body powder and You Rebel - the list goes on a bit, as you can see. And that's before Dandelion, Georgia and all the other wonderful powder boxes. The products were cute and quirky (as I wished to believe I was) and above all else, they were actually good. That's what I love about Benefit, its not style over substance, it's style and substance. Awesome.

That said, I was a bit wary when I saw the neon orange Cha Cha Tint bottle. I always have a bottle of BeneTint around (especially in the New York summer when a stain is an essential) and I've dabbled with PosieTint but a coral version? Really? But my concerns have been put well and truly to rest. I'm obsessed. As with the other tints in the Benefit range, you need to move quickly when applying so I like to do one cheek and then the other. Just two or three little dots, rubbed in to the apple of the cheek, blending up and back. Obviously, you should pop it wherever works best for you. For the lips, I love this way more than BeneTint. Cha Cha Tint has a more opaque formula and leaves such a fantastic colour on lips and obvs, if you've used it as your cheek colour, you've got perfect coordination right there but, because your natural lip colour comes into play, there's a subtle change, so you're not too matchy matchy.

Yes, it is a coral but it's a beautiful pinkish coral that looks fantastic in my pale skin as a cheek tint and lip colour and, while we were on the Marie Claire Inspire & Mentor tour, my agent - olive skin, brown hair - also picked up a bottle and looked amazing in it. Just so fresh and summery. So hurrah Benefit, you've done it again.

And you have also succeeded in reminding me of the time my grandad tried to teach me the cha cha cha and it was disaster.