American Jellies: Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelées

Last year, I tried for the first time and fell in love with jelly finish in cream cheek products. While it's more of an Asian beauty trend and not widely available among Western brands, there is a jelly product you can get easily if you live in the US: the Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelées ($22 for 0.18 oz). I seem to have acquired two shades in very quick succession: Pink Escape, via Sephora's Beauty Insider perk (hence the dinky pot), and Getaway Red, because... strawberry jelly! I wish it smelt like berry gelée too, but, alas - absolutely no scent on these.

Here's the Sephora blurb for you, lifted from the website: 'This buildable, blendable blush hybrid provides the natural look of a cream blush with the long-lasting hydrating color of a gel stain. Infused with 50 percent pure coconut water, it instantly hydrates while nourishing with the powerful benefits of vitamin E-rich argan oil. Like a refreshing sip of coconut water for your skin, this moisture-packed blush instantly drenches cheeks in a cool veil of color'. End of blurb. There are eight colors in the line, ranging from sunny orange to deep wine.

A quick look at the ingredients proves that the Watercolor Gelées indeed contain quite a bit of coconut water (yum!), as well as moisturizing glycerin and argan oil. Josie Maran's product line could be described as 'aiming to be natural', and while there IS some lab-produced chemistry in there (shock horror! Nah, I don't care...), it's nice to know this blush is vegan, paraben, gluten and cruelty-free.

Can we contemplate the merry squishiness of the untouched product for a moment? Aaaah... Purdy. Now, when you touch your finger to the blush inside, it does indeed have a somewhat stiff gelatinous texture to it - interesting! Through a lot of trial and error, I've found that applying with a small duo fiber stippling brush dabbed straight into the jar works the best for me, because these are jelly STAINS, and they set incredibly quickly. I do a couple of very fast and vigorous blending motions with my brush to avoid concentrated patches of color. Trying to pick up color with your fingers results in most of the product staining your fingers, not your cheeks.

Those difficulties aside, I find these Watercolor Cheek Gelées to be a very cool (literally) and unique concept. They do feel nice and cooling on your skin, so they'd be perfect for hot summer months - also, they really are long-wearing. The pigmentation is on the sheer side (so they're not as scary as they look in the pot... Or who am I kidding, when am I ever scared by a bright blush?) but buildable, and the fun, punchy colors stand out on the skin and give it a natural, radiant flush. These Gelées also feel and look beautifully lightweight on the cheeks, there's literally no product feel to these, so if you like invisible blush that provides that glowing from within look, you need to give them a good swatch session.

Please don't be turned off by my swatches - I will admit that these are pants in arm swatches, they just don't lend themselves to being laid on thick; so if you want more opacity on your cheeks, I'd recommend thin layers rather than smacking half the jar on at once. For science, I did try these on the lips as well, and they're quite subtle and pretty when dabbed on; they don't even feel dry or tight, and that's a big achievement for a stain. I especially like to wear the Gelées under a sheer lipgloss to amp up the brightness a bit.

Compared to my favorite jellies of 2014, the Canmake Cream Cheeks in the clear finish, the Josie Maran Cheek Gelées are thinner in consistency and more sheer, and they almost have a bit of that dry silicone feel, although definitely less than the Revlon PhotoReady Cream Blush. The difference in textures of these three cheek products boils down to this, in my opinion: Canmake Cream Cheek is a cream jelly, Josie Maran is a gel jelly (wtf?), Revlon Photoready Cream Blush is a translucent cream to powder. As for the shades, Pink Escape is a cool toned/ just in from the cold pink (very similar to Revlon Flushed), while Getaway Red is a cool toned/ pinky red.

L-R: Josie Maran Pink Escape, Canmake Cream Cheek in CL04 Clear Pink Joy, Revlon PhotoReady Cream Blush in Flushed, Josie Maran Getaway Red, Canmake Cream Cheek in CL03 Clear Orange

Wearing Getaway Red on them apples. Also, wonky eyebrow -_-

All things considered, I'm having a lot of fun with these Watercolor Cheek Gelées; it's one of the more interesting formulations I've played around with in the recent months. I will say that they're not the easiest product to apply evenly, and they can cling to textural imperfections on the cheeks, but I feel that the same can be said about a lot of other stains - and the Gelées are way cooler than your average stain. So, yeah - go prod them at your local Sephora. What is your favorite cheek stain? Or do you skip creams and jellies altogether and simply prefer powder blushes?