By Chrissy Iley
I’ve noticed there has been a lipstick revolution recently. Lipsticks have gone tiny and more powerful. They have morphed into lip pencils and lip paint with more pigment, more staying power and more softness. The lip power packing where one hybrid meets another means you get multi- tasking madness. One product instead of three. Yves Saint Laurent are doing Vernis A Levres Vinyl Cream (£26). What I love about this packaging is it’s all black with a little see through window so you can see the colour. It’s YSL at its best, giving you the benefit of a lasting lip stain, a high shine gloss and a lipstick. It’s long wearing and lacquered. It’s like a nail lacquer but for the lips. Creamy yet glossy, like vinyl.
Vernis A Levres Vinyl Cream in “Rouge Remix”
I’ve gone for the vibrant reds and the popping pinks – Rouge Remix is a bright glossy perfect orange red. The favourites are Rhythm Red which is the perfect scarlet beat. I love the smell of it. It’s all encompassing freshness and relaxation. It smells of newness and of shine, if shine had a smell. I love the little brush the way it’s slightly tilted so you can make a perfect lip shape. I love its texture, the way it uploads onto the lips, giving them the creamiest, glossiest, poutiest lips imaginable.
But there are some other new heroes of mine too. Benefit’s They’re Real BIG Sexy Lip Kit (£24.50) is a fantastic kit of four dynamic mini lipsticks that are also lip pencils. They are beautiful colours. One is a perfect pink, my favourite a vibrant orange and the others quite lovely pinky reds. I love the texture, I love the staying power. So tiny yet so powerful. And I love most the lipstick comes with its own little lip liner built in so you apply it to your lips and you instantly have big sexy lips like the eighties but an updated version of course because the liner is all smudgy blendy and works itself into the lipstick.
Benefit’s They’re Real BIG Sexy Lip Kit
My other must have is the Chantecaille Lip Chic in Sunrise (£29). You put this on and you think are these lips mine or someone elses? This is the most plumping lipstick that has ever touched my lips and once again we’re going for the hybrid revolution. Plumping meets gloss meets the rich even coverage of a lipstick. It goes on, it seeps in, it pouts out. It seems to smooth and firm the lips and you know how some lipsticks aren’t comfortable because they’re a little bit dry or they taste a bit wrong? This is the most comfortable lipstick I’ve ever worn. Absolutely gorgeous.
Chantecaille Lip Chic in “Sunrise”
Also worth mentioning is the sweet little Hourglass liquid lipstick, Riviera (£23). This is liquid lipstick, you apply it like a gloss but it stays on like a high intense lipstick and that’s not all. 14 hours of continuous wear, vivid colour with a velvety matt finish. It glides on without any gloopiness or stickiness and infuses the lips with goji berry extracts and cili fruit and anti-oxidant projection and vitamins A, C and E nourish and protect. You put it on, you don’t need to reapply it. This is my plane lipstick. It stays on, you don’t have to keep reapplying therefore there’s no danger I will lose it and it keeps the lips soft.
Hourglass Liquid Lipstick in “Riviera”
I’m also keen on the Sisley Phyto Liptwist tinted balm (£29). Here we have the fusion of vibrant colour and lip balm. A single twist and the lips are smoothed and plumped, due to its cocktail of plant based active ingredients. It has a lovely melting glide on texture, a balm with a vibrant colour.
Phyto-Lip Twist in “Cherry”
My final lip wonder is the Surrat Lipslique in Oh L’Amour (£22). I’d never heard of this make before and you open it up and it’s a slim black pencil of a lipstick and it looks like it’s going to be dark and flaky. It is the opposite. It’s a beautiful lip colour. A sort of tawny red, the essence of autumn. It’s vibrant, it’s super glossy and it’s volumising. You can have it as a lip tint so it’s almost sheer or you can build up the colour so that it’s a pop of glossy pouty loveliness. It’s comfortable, it’s juicy, it’s a wonderful thing.
Surrat Lipslique in Oh L’Amour
Apart from Benefit and YSL, all available at Liberty and they are great finds.