As a beauty blogger, I must say, it’s hard for me to get genuinely excited about any individual beauty product. I mean, more than an eyebrow raise or two; more than an impulsive purchase. Something that sparks the type of creativity I haven’t felt in many, many years. The BALMAIN x L’OREAL lipstick collaboration did this for me. The names of the shades, the entire campaign just inspired me. I love looking at the Balmain designs I can’t afford; so edgy and provocative. The best way for me to participate was definitely in this lipstick range. I had to do more (for myself) than take regular old pictures and write a regular old review; I imagined myself as manifestations as some of the shades, and showcased the remaining shades as more of an everyday, work-appropriate lipstick.
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| Wearing Power on lips |
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| Fever |
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| Fever |
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| Fever |
Power
Domination
Liberation
Confidence
Confession
Fever
The Review
My skin type
My lips are relatively dry. I generally use lip balm before using any lip color. The lipsticks do not play well with lip balm, so I have to wear them without. While these lipsticks are really, really creamy, they aren’t very moisturizing and probably a little bit drying. I suggest exfoliating and treating your lips before using these as using lip balm will make the colors do go on very streaky and will emphasize dryness.
How I use it
When I was using them with lip balm these went on semi-opaque and it took too much effort to be built to full-coverage. Without lip balm, one swipe on each lip was enough to get a full-coverage, non-streaky lip color. I did experiment with applying a lip moisturizer over Liberation, but it ended up making the color semi-opaque and the matte lipstick looked more like a gloss. The key with these is prepping your lips beforehand. I also love how pigmented and rich the colors are.
What I like about it
Personal favorites are Confidence and Fever. When I saw Confidence in the tube, I gave it a strong side-eye because I thought it was going to be a pale shade on me. I was quite surprised when I saw all the shimmer and the beautiful gold in it. Fever also caught me by surprise. I saw it on the model and thought I can totally pull that off and I feel like I did! Plus it’s so unique to my collection. The only other orange lipstick I have is from Topshop but this has more of a brown undertone.
What could be better
It was important for me to remember that although this is a high fashion collaboration, it’s a collaboration with drugstore makeup. I wasn’t sure where this would fall on the quality ladder since it’s being sold in Barneys. What I found was that it’s where it lacks in quality is made up for with a high fashion feel. These also don’t last very long and will need to be reapplied after eating and drinking and also smell very strongly of… roses and vanilla? I think the scent could have been toned down a bit. These smell strongly in the tube and does not dissipate once on your lips.
These aren’t the best lipsticks I ever owned, but the joy factor is off the charts (thanks Balmain). I do have to say that these were only allowed to be $14.00 because of Balmain’s name attached to it; otherwise these were pricey for the quality.
Joy Factor
Where to indulge
-XX
Author
Werk!!!
Author
>insert booty shake< π