Lippies

Like my attitude towards blushes, I am also a lip makeup minimalist. I've tried using lipstick before, but everything I've ever tried was too drying for me so I've pretty much given up on the idea of using lipstick (though the lipsticks Asian dept store brands like Maquillage offer do look pretty tempting, if they weren't so expensive). Currently, the only lip makeup products I use are lipglosses from L'Oreal Paris and Shiseido Integrate.


From the L'Oreal Infallible line of lipgloss, I've purchased four colors: 115 Blush, 405 Coral Sands, 705 Sangria, and 715 Raisin. Blush is a shimmery cool pink in the tube, but on the lips it appears to be a shimmery clear gloss with a very slight pink frost. Coral Sands is a bit more opaque and looks like a non-shimmery peach on my lips. Sangria is a beautiful non-shimmery pink red that is just a shade or two darker than my natural lip color (which is about medium pigmented). Raisin is a very grown-up shimmery wine/berry color that looks slightly brown in the tube but applies with a purple undertone. The shimmer in the colors that contain shimmer are all very fine so they don't feel gritty on my lips.


All of these glosses apply like a normal gloss, but kind of dries down to a texture halfway between a stain and a lipstick (it's hard to explain), which helps the color to stay on the lips better than normal glosses. Still, don't expect the gloss to last through lunch, though it might stay on through a drink (I haven't performed a rigorous test to check). Even after drying down, the gloss still retains a glossy sheen, and the texture doesn't accentuate my lip lines. However, the gloss is kind of sticky so my hair do stick to my lips on windy days. Nonetheless, I love these glosses because they're not as drying as the lipsticks I've tried, stay on pretty well, and don't cause an oily mess around my lips like many other glosses do.

The packaging on the glosses in the Infallible line advertise that there is a mirror. Don't bother looking for the mirror as it's just the silver, reflective cap of the gloss (I actually spent ages trying to figure out where the mirror is "hidden" before I found out). It's a stupid design idea and advertising point since you can't use the cap as a mirror when you need the applicator attached to the cap to apply the gloss. Also, even if the applicator can be detached from the cap, the reflection in the cap is so distorted, you really can't tell whether you've applied the gloss well or not.

The applicator in these glosses is a modified doe foot applicator that has mixed ratings in the makeup community. The applicator has a wider body than the normal doe foot, but also has a pointed tip for precision application. I personally like the applicator because the pointed tip helps me draw in my cupid's bow and the wider body is more efficient at evenly distributing the color on my lips. The picture below shows the wand from the Blush lipgloss.


The other brand of lipgloss I own is Shiseido Integrate Glamorous Rouge in BE323. This color is definitely my HG nude lip color, which is sad because the color has been discontinued. BE323 is a fairly opaque peachy pink nude, so it tones down my lips without making me look like I have the lips of a dead person. The texture of the gloss is not sticky, but it doesn't cause a oily mess around my lips either.


Another reason why I like this Integrate gloss so well (apart from the color) is because of the interesting applicator. The applicator is a spatula with a hole in the middle where the gloss comes out. The knob at the bottom of the gloss allows you to control how much gloss comes out and also enables you to retract any excess gloss. The spatula design makes for an easy application that is also very sanitary because you can wipe down the spatula after every use. Also, if you're layering the gloss over a lipcolor, you don't have to worry about the lipcolor contaminating the color of the gloss.


All of the photos in this entry were taken under natural light.

In short: The L'Oreal Infallible and Shiseido Integrate glosses are both awesome. The L'Oreal glosses last longer than most glosses and most colors are reasonably pigmented. However, some people may not be used to the texture of the L'Oreal glosses after it dries down and they are slightly sticky. The Shiseido Integrate gloss has a very cool yet practical applicator. Hopefully, I'll be able to find a replacement color for my HG nude BE323 that is now discontinued.

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Please click here to see lip swatches of some of these glosses layered over lipsticks.