They get grouped together and sold in the same aisle, but a cream blush and a liquid blush behave differently on skin, last differently through a day, and suit different faces. Here is how to tell which one you want.
The difference is water
A cream blush is built on waxes and emollients. It is dense, it has slip, and it stays where you put it while you blend. A liquid blush carries more water or volatile solvent, so it is thinner, it travels further from less product, and it sets faster.
That single difference explains nearly everything else.
Finish
Cream gives a satin, slightly cushioned finish that sits just above the skin. It reads as makeup, in a good way, and it photographs with body.
Liquid sinks in and reads as though the color is coming from under the skin. It is the more transparent of the two, and the harder one to spot as makeup.
Blending window
This is the practical difference, and the one nobody mentions. Cream gives you thirty seconds or more to move it. Liquid gives you closer to ten, because once the water flashes off, the color is where it is going to stay.
If you are new to blush, start with cream. That extra time is worth more than any other advantage either formula has.
Which lasts longer
Liquid, usually, because a set liquid transfers very little. Cream stays workable, which is the same reason it can shift in a warm room or under a scarf. Setting either one with a light translucent powder closes most of the gap.
Skin type
Dry skin is happier in cream. The emollients give the color something to sit on, and it will not cling to flaking.
Oily skin does better in liquid, which sets down and then stops moving.
Textured or mature skin does better in either than in powder. Powder is what settles into fine lines.
What goes on first
Both go on before powder, never after. Beyond that, order follows density: base, then cream or liquid blush, then powder, then anything powder-based you want to layer on top.
If you want to wear both, liquid first as a wash, cream on top of the high point for definition. The reverse tends to lift the cream straight back off.
The downside of cream blush
It can look heavy over a full matte base, and it can move through a long day. Neither is a fault in the formula. Both are solved by using less of it and setting it.
Which one to start with
If you want the color to disappear into the skin, liquid. If you want it to sit as a soft, defined shape, cream. If you are undecided, cream, because the blending window forgives more.
ANIÉ Liquid Blush is the fluid one, in Touched, Bloom and Caress. Beauty Stix 3 in 1 is the cream one, in stick format for cheek and lip, in Play It Up and Coquette. Both sit in the Cheek collection.