Lip Crayons: Combination Lip Balm/Lip Stain

Today at the department store, I saw something of interest in the makeup section. They look like over-sized crayons, and are for use as lip color. It's Revlon's "Just Bitten Kissable" Balm Stain. All of the colors looked pretty appealing to me (red, orange, light pink, hot pink, mauve) but I managed enough discipline to only buy two, the hot pink (#20, "Lovesick") and the mauve (#01, "Honey"). Here I'll talk about the hot pink.

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain, "Lovesick"

As you can see, it's a lip crayon. It's fairly large, and very easy to apply. It doesn't take a whole lot of precision. It's fairly sheer, so you can layer it to get as much color as you want. It goes on slightly shiny, though it's not super glossy. It also has a slight mint fragrance to it.

I definitely like the shade of pink. It's bright but wearable, and I could've made the color weaker by putting less on. I went over my lips several times to get this shade. It goes on smoothly and looks more or less like a sheer lipstick.

To test the lip stain component, I waited about half an hour and then pressed a tissue to my lips a few times. Only a little bit of color came off onto the tissue, so it would seem that my lips absorbed most of it. Here's the result:

My lips certainly aren't shiny anymore, and the color is a little faded, but it's not that far from the original shade. I'd say it definitely works as a lip stain. You wouldn't have to reapply all that often to keep it looking plenty bright, since this is what it looked like after I tried to remove it with a tissue. Now, two hours and one nap later, it looks more or less the same as it did in this picture. So it's very long lasting. But makeup remover and a cotton pad are sufficient to remove nearly all of it if you want it off. 

I really like this product. It's bright and slightly shiny like a gloss, but not at all sticky or thick. It looks a lot like lipstick but doesn't have to be applied as often, and is easier to apply well. Although it looks like a crayon, it doesn't need sharpening; as it wears down you just twist the bottom end like you would with a tube of chapstick, and it advances. I think it will be handy in a lot of situations. You could also wear it under glosses or lipsticks to make sure the color won't completely fade off your lips at any point. And once you've had it on for a while, very little of it comes off onto other things, like cups, or people. Okay, so I didn't test it on people. But you can drink out of a glass without leaving a major lipstick stain on it.

I especially like the color options for this balm/stain. I would have happily bought all of them, but I figure I should save at least a little money for use on other things, what with Christmas coming up. Still, it's nice that in addition to the several very bright shades, there's one more subdued option, which is the mauve ("Honey"). I'm not posting any pictures right now because the light has gone and I can't get an accurate shot of the color, but I've tried it on and I think it's a great shade. It's not a nude shade, but I'd say it's business appropriate. I'd be comfortable wearing it to work, or to a nice dinner party. Although I love bright colors, I think "Honey" might be the one I'd recommend the most strongly.

Attempting Eyeliner: Maybelline Hyper Glossy Liquid Liner

Today I thought I'd give liquid eyeliner a shot. I typically use cream eyeliner and a brush, so I don't have a lot of practice with this kind. I bought some Maybelline Hyper Glossy Liquid Liner (waterproof type) in BK-1. The katakana for the color name looks like it should read "Piano Black".

Maybelline Hyper Glossy Liquid Liner

Well, I experienced some difficulty with this stuff, so the results aren't going to be too pretty this time. I was going for a cat eye look. Because I messed up on one eye and went off in a different direction with it, I've got two looks happening here.

Things did not go as planned.

First, the eye I  messed up. After I applied some of the liquid liner, I didn't let it dry long enough before opening my eye all the way, and some of it ended up in the crease of my eye. So I went ahead and lined the rest of the crease, connecting the line to the regular cat eye liner. Then I attacked it with metallic eye  shadow. Here's where I ended up:

I left the mascara off so you could get a better look at the eyeliner. Here's what it looks like with mascara:

Yeah... Let's move on to the other eye. This one turned out a little bit closer to what I intended. Still not gorgeous, but that's more an issue of applying liquid liner with shaking hands.

Again, I left the mascara off for this step. The eyeliner is glossy, as promised. It's possible to get quite a thin line with this brush, but I went over it a few times to make it thicker. 

With mascara this time, and with my eye closed. It's possible to get a nice line, although I had trouble with it bleeding into creases a bit. You can see a little of that toward the outer corner of my eye. I also found that the eyeliner seemed to flake a bit when dry. I don't know how well it would last if worn all day, since I've only just tried it out at home this evening.

Aside from the problems I had applying it, which are a reflection of my own lack of skill, I had a few complaints about this eyeliner. For one thing, it bleeds pretty easily, even if you're careful not to apply too much at once. It also seems to flake a tiny bit when dry. The shiny finish is nice, but I found that the coverage isn't great; it cracked some at the outer corner of the eye. Overall, I'm not especially impressed with this one.

I might try this one out again sometime when I'm going out dancing for the night. I'd like to see how it holds up. If it's really waterproof, it might be good for use in a sticky-hot club. And it does seem like it should be quite smudge-proof when dry. At night the tiny cracks in the coverage might not be such an issue, either. I won't be throwing this away, but it doesn't seem likely to become one of my favorites.

Shorter False Lashes: Eyemazing

Today's false eyelashes: Eyemazing Ciffone Line no. 402, "Party eye". Side note: I'm pretty sure that "ciffone" is a misspelling of "chiffon". These lashes are somewhat shorter than a lot of others I've tried, so I was curious to see how they'd look. Here are the lashes out of the packaging:

Until you get to about two thirds of the way out toward the outer corner of the eye, the lashes really aren't very long. But the way they cross to form little points gives an interesting look. The band the lashes are attached to is a little thicker than what I'm used to; I mostly use D.U.P. lashes, and those tend to have very thin bands. But these lashes did cost less than D.U.P. lashes, so that's also a consideration.

I didn't take any "before" pictures this time, but I think the effect of the lashes should be pretty visible even without something to compare it to. First, here's my whole face:

 I didn't do a great job of applying the lashes symmetrically,  so you're going to get a different effect depending on which eye we're looking at. But first, let's see how the pointy tips look.

On this eye, I didn't apply them quite as close to the lash line as I usually try to, and the pointiness is more visible this way. It wasn't done deliberately, but it does give me an idea of the effect of placement.

Here's the other eye. I applied the lashes much closer to my lash line, and they don't look nearly as pointy. 

And this is what both eyes look like. You can see a big difference between the two. Although the lashes on the left side of the picture look more unnatural up close (they are further from my natural lash line), I think the effect is much more interesting. I prefer the pointy look.

These were the first Eyemazing lashes I've bought, and I have to say that while I like the style, I'm not very impressed with the quality. I trimmed the bands to fit my eyes properly, but even at the right length they were somewhat uncomfortable. Usually after a few minutes I more or less forget that I'm wearing the lashes, but I couldn't really adjust to these ones. I took them off fairly quickly. I'll probably give them another shot sometime in the near future, but it doesn't look like Eyemazing will be a brand I buy more of.

Side note about the incidental makeup: 

In these pictures I'm wearing a new lipstick I just got two days ago. It's "Centrifuchsia" by Lime Crime. The lighting in my bathroom isn't great, so I'd say that it's actually even brighter than it looks here. It's probably my new favorite lipstick; the color is really rich and it goes on very smoothly. It also smells like marshmallows and is vegan (contains no animal products and is not tested on animals), which is pretty cool as well. 

I'm also wearing some gold eyeliner from Lime Crime. The shade is called "Rhyme". These pictures don't show it very well, but it's quite beautiful and the color is really solid. I put it over the top of my black eyeliner, and all you can see is the gold. It's also nice and shiny. 

Since my photography is pretty crap, I'd strongly recommend checking out the actual shades of the eyeliner and lipstick on the Lime Crime webpage. My lighting is very poor, so my pictures didn't come out true-to-life. The ones on the web site are much, much more accurate.

Lime Crime Lipstick: Centrifuchsia

Lime Crime Eyeliner: Rhyme

See you next time!