Giorgio Armani & Shu Uemura: My Nordies Lipstick Experience

I discovered the beauty section of Nordstrom Rack several months ago. At first I was enraged at finding my Shu Uemura Ninagawa Mika Secret Luscious Rose palette on sale for almost 50% off the original price when I just bought it at full price a few months prior. However, I was also ecstatic at finding a variety of department store makeup items on sale, including a fair selection of Trish McEvoy, Stila, Giorgio Armani, Too Faced, and Shu Uemura items. I was able to ward off any temptation of buying makeup items from Nordstrom Rack for a while, but eventually ended up buying a Giorgio Armani Sheer Lipstick and a Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited not too long ago. I will be briefly reviewing these two items in this post.


I love the sleek black packaging with Giorgio Armani lipsticks. Even though it is plastic, the matte surface makes it look modern and chic, not cheap-looking like some drugstore lipstick packaging. I also like the embossed Giorgio Armani logo on the lipstick itself =) The color that I got is 02.


The creamy consistency of the lipstick is excellent, but it is unfortunately too sheer for my semi-pigmented lips. I'm not a big fan of opaque lipsticks so I thought the Sheer Lipstick line would fit my needs better, but I didn't expect it to be this sheer. Also, at the Nordstrom Rack I visited, only this Sheer Lipstick in 02 was a color I would consider putting on my lips in public. I rather like the light peachy color, so it's just too bad that it doesn't show up on my lips.


Moving on...

I've really wanted to buy a Shu Uemura lipstick for a while now since I love the futuristic packaging (I'm shallow =P) and I've heard some good things about them. The color I picked is PK302, again because it was the only color in the batch available that I would consider putting on my lips.


Unfortunately, perhaps because the Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited in PK302 I got was on sale, the texture was drier than I expected and not really what I consider good quality. In addition, I don't like the obvious silver shimmer particles in the lipstick, and the light pink color was also too sheer for my lips. I was too lazy to take a swatch photo for this since it looks very similar to the Giorgio Armani Sheer in 02, except the Shu Uemura is a little cooler.


The Giorgio Armani pictures in this post were taken under natural light, whereas the Shu Uemura pictures were taken under white light.

In short: A big disappointment for both purchases; both the Giorgio Armani Sheer Lipstick in 02 and the Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited in PK302 were too sheer for me and the texture of the Shu Uemura lipstick was too dry. Definitely will not be repurchasing either of these. My lesson learned is that even though it's great to buy department store makeup at prices lower than retail, the outlet still has a more limited selection and the quality may be questionable such as with the Shu lipstick.