Kosas is the cool girl of clean beauty. RMS is a well known incumbent player in the clesn beauty space - going clean before it was even a thing.
I have an undying love for both brands. Kosas' lipstick in Rosewater has dethroned my Charlotte Tilbury lipstick in Pillowtalk as my number one. My favourite highlighter of all time is RMS' Living Luminizer; Rain, shine, summer, winter, I can count on it like no other.
Recently, I acquired Kosas' blush/highlighter duo in Velvet Melon.
I like to travel with cream formulations because I don't have to worry about them shattering.
If you're not a fan of cream formulations, you haven't found the right one. When it's good, it can be REALLY good. I love the ease of being able to use my fingers. And when you have a good one, it will play nicely with the products underneath. When it's bad, it's patchy and you end up rubbing it around along with everything else you've got on.
BLUSH:
The Kosas' formula is so silky smooth. Much more so than RMS' which I find quite dense. The Kosas one is more emollient - it's like rubbing your finger on a brick of butter. The RMS one, I find, is more pigmented. It's definitely the most "disco ball glow" of all the RMS Luminizers.
They both blend out quite well:
Here they are blended out. I left it on my arm quite quickly and the RMS one had already started to set (you can see the streak), so it doesn't look quite as smooth. However, in real life, it's very seamless.
Something else I like to know about cream blushes is how well they will last throughout the day. My RMS one is the one I count on on hot summer days. It seems a little counter-intuitive that a cream product would outlast a powder one, but what can I say? It outlasts everything else for me.
I let both of them sit for another minute and tried to rub it around a little more and the RMS was not budging at all. I wore long sleeves and even after a full day, it was still visible in the shower. I had to take makeup remover to it.
When I put the Kosas blush on (my face), I found that I had to use more product than I'm used to with the RMS. I do really love the Velvet Melon shade - I thought it would be too orange, but it blends beautifully and is a great natural look on me. (You can see what it looks like on in this video)
HIGHLIGHTER:
Here are the swatches of RMS' most popular highlighter, Living Luminizer, my personal favourite, Magic Luminizer, and the highlighter that comes in the Velvet Melon palette.
Here is what they look like once I've blended them out. Again, the Kosas formula is a thinner, silkier texture when you pick up the product. However, when it comes to setting, the Magic Luminizer is the only one that really sets into place and becomes budge proof.
Overall, I really do love both formulas, but for me RMS squeaks out ahead because of pigmentation and longevity.
To illustrate the differences between the formulas even more, you can see in the Kosas palette, where my fingers have touched the formula, it remains kind of shiny. That's probably just the way the oils are so infused into the product. Whereas in the upper right hand corner, we see my very well-loved RMS palette. There's only 1g of product in each pan, but a little goes such a long way. You can see how the formula appears stickier from where my finger has left a depression. Continuing clockwise, that's my mini Luminizer palette (a really affordable way to try RMS) and you can see in the bronzer that the oils have separated and come to the top a little bit (this bronzer is sooooo good, you guys). This is normal for RMS products and when the temperature drops, it goes away. On the lower left hand corner is my backup of my favourite. It's kept in the fridge, but if I leave it out, the eye polish (middle) and highlighter will separate just a teensy bit. The blush doesn't separate, I find.
One of my favourite beauty YouTuber, Matilda also loves cream blushes - she's the cream blush queen, IMO. Cream Blush Pots. Kosas. RMS.