BEAUTY: Lip service

2009/10/19

Syida Lizta Amirul Ihsan

THE most powerful tool a woman can buy is lipstick. Have you seen how a swipe of the lippie lightens up a woman’s face?

When buying, colour’s not the only thing that needs to be considered. The product has to be good for the lips and these new generation lipsticks help to colour and care.

What: Chanel’s famous click lipstick, the Rouge Allure, now has a sister — the Rouge Allure Laque — inspired by the shine of the lacquer.
Packed with jojoba oil and concentrated pigments, lips are both smoothed and injected with lacquered shine.
It comes with foam applicator for precision, and the shades — Coromandel, Dragon, Mandarin, Imperial, Dynastie, Ming — are named after the elements in Chinese culture.
Effect: The colour is so intense and amplified that you only need very little. Thankfully, this doesn’t dry the lips. Great for a night out.
Price: RM110

What: Christian Dior Serum de Rouge is a lip colour that acts as a lip serum with 20 per cent lip-care ingredient, 10 times more than ordinary lip-caring lipsticks.
It has mango butter, Centella Asiatica extract and hyaluronic acid as active ingredients to give lips the care it needs.

Chanel

Effect: Lips look immediately luscious. The bright red shade gives an instant Monica Bellucci pout. Feels like second skin, because it’s so light.
Price: RM109

What: L’Oreal Paris Infallible Lip Duo compact is a lighter-looking thing with two tubes attached to its sides — one is a lip colour, the other, a moisturising balm.
What’s funny, I thought, is that you apply the lip colour before the balm. I feel like it conditions the lip colour, not the lips. But yes, the lip colour sticks like glue.
The colour is intense, the glide easy and the lip colour doesn’t transfer onto the balm.
Effect: Full coverage and lasting colour, but it didn’t make lips softer or more supple.
Price: RM55

What: Sisley Phyto-Lip Shine is the brand’s bestselling lippie, bringing together skincare technology to lip colour. Its translucency nourishes and softens lips and the polymers help give a smooth finish like a lipstick should.
Effect: Say goodbye to heavy lipsticks. New generation lippies often feel light, like this. And it’s nice that it’s translucent, because your lip colour peeks from under.
Price: RM140