Higher End Makeup Product Regret and a better Dupe

I went into the department store one day hoping to treat myself and splurge on a higher end face product, a blush most probably. My gaze fell onto a blush by Dior. I loved the color and it looked amazing under those lights...yeah you know what I'm talking about. Matters moved swiftly on when the sales lady sang all its praises. At any rate, long story short I ended up with the

Came in a cute velvet cover, mines is full of fluff because it has just been sitting there in my drawer.

The shade: 839 Rose Vintage

The inside, one side is a matte light medium pink, the other a light pink highlighter with gold shimmer.

It look so amazing, I'm sure looking at the pic you want to pick it right out. I thought to myself the highlighter and blush will serve 3 purposes: a matte blush, a highlight for the higher planes of the face, and when swirled together, I'll get a blush with a healthy sheen that gives both a blush and highlighting effect.

Well guess what, I was wrong.

There was hardly any pigment in the blush and the highlight only gave me gold glitter on my face. The powder had to be really worked into to get even that. Its like no matter how much I put my brush in there, the color would not transfer and there was a lot of fall out as you can notice. This was after blowing off the excess after swatching.

What I expected was a nice high sheen, glowy dewy blush that I could just sweep on in one stroke. And I found just that in an extraordinary product that sat in plain sight each time I went to the drugstore.

NYX Mosaic Powder in Dare

I know you're thinking I must be mistaken, this is nothing like the Dior blush...but these various shades (of which one is usually a highlighter) when swirled together give a completely different look than you would expect, at least this one did.

Here are both blushes together:

The blushes side by side

The NYX blush is a fraction of the price but its so buttery and soft and easily transfers to the brush and onto the skin. And yes it gave me exactly what I expecting from the Dior product:

Left: After a heavy hand in swatching this is all I could get from the Dior Blush, notice the big glitters in there.

Right: A beautiful coral pink that looks like it cam from the Dior Blush, with that high sheen and no chunks of glitter and without having to do heavy labor (so to speak)

I was so disappointed, I can't do much with it but of course I'll keep at it. Meanwhile you can decide for yourself....expensive is not always better.