Blushes You Can't Have # 3 - Shu Uemura Sakura Glow-On

Last year, Joeubunny and I relished torturing you all with twelve taupe eyeshadows that you couldn't  have.  We couldn't just stop our sadistic ways in 2011!  That's not how we roll.  So this year we decided to focus on blushes you can’t have!  These posts consists of Blushes that are Discontinued, Rare or very Hard to Find (HTF).  Ah yes. Joeybunny and I are perfecting the art of Sadism....at least when it comes to makeup! 

The inaugural posts was one I did about a Chanel Joues Contraste blush in Poesie. Last Month Joey brought you her favorite MAC blush called Afterdusk. This month I bring you a blush from Shu Uemura called Sakura.

image from http://chip.lv/onelife/uploads/2008/03/cherry_blossom_.jpg

Shu Uemura (Pronounced Shoo-Ooo-E-Mur-Ah) released this Glow-On (A.K.A. Blush) in the spring of 2006. Of course it seems fitting that the SAKURA blush is released in Spring. Because in Japan, hanami is the time in spring when the cherry blossoms bloom.  In which millions of Japanese and  tourist come to Japan to see and enjoy the beauty of the flowers. The origin of hanami started when "Emperor Saga of the Heian Period adopted this practice, and held flower-viewing parties with sake and feasts underneath the blossoming boughs of sakura trees in the Imperial Court in Kyoto. Poems would be written praising the delicate flowers, which were seen as a metaphor for life itself, luminous and beautiful yet fleeting and ephemeral. The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality; for this reason, cherry blossoms are very symbolic, and have been utilized often in Japanese art, manga, anime, and film.  

image from http://hwevents.typepad.com

Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and famously line the shore of the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. (see West Potomac Park). The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.  I have the great fortune to live in the Washington, DC area and have been witness to the awesome beauty that these trees give us each and every spring.

The Shu Uemura Glow-On in Sakura is a sweetly cool pink blush similar to 33E from their regular line of blushes with the distinct and unique difference that Sakura contains Shimmer and fine glitter in the finished blush.  Shu Blushes are known for their expertly milled powders that emit an incredibly sheer and luminous finish on the skin.  This limited edition blush released in 2006 is no exception to the expertise in Shu blush craftsmanship. 

The color is that of a sweet sakura blossom.  Having grown up in an area rich in Cherry Blossom trees I am no stranger to the perfection that is the pink blossom, so I am pleased to say that the Shu Sakura blush is so very close to pink blossom you will blush!  (see what I did there?)

The beauty of Shu blushes is the sheerness of them. It is almost impossible to over blush with a Shu Uemura Glow-On. You can easily build up the pigmentation if you wish a more dramatic look but the beauty of blush is to just give the hint of color.   This is truly a gem among blushes, but will never compare with the beauty of the Japanese Cherry Blossom tree nor the overwhelming generosity of Japan's gift to the US of those trees.

My Haiku to Shu Uemura Sakura Blush:

Shu Sakura Blush

What A Beauty To Behold

Pretty Pink Perfection