Late to the bold matte lip party- Hourglass Opaque Rouge

Okay so I was pretty late to the bold lip thing going on.  One reason for this is that I have very pigmented lips so it’s hard to find something opaque enough to wear.  Also I felt really self-conscious wearing something so bright on my face, despite loving the look on other people.   

My friend Louise wears all manner of colours and pulls it off really well, peach, red, purple, lilac, beige.  She does it all and it look amazing.  Inspired by her I went in search of something I could wear. 

Ballet

Muse

Raven

Hourglass Opaque rouge.  So these have been out for a about a year and they are lovely.  They are marketed as a liquid lipstick, that are non-drying, and non-bleeding.  The advantage of these is that they act like a stain, but they have that milky opaqueness of a lipstick.  The applicator is thin enough to get a really accurate application.  The SA advised that you shouldn’t put lip balm underneath as the colour would just slip off. 

I reckon that these are really long wearing, however about 3 hours in wearing ballet yesterday I cracked and plonked some lip balm on.  Which refreshed the colour, but made the colour wipe off pretty quickly off my lips.  At about lunch time I applied again and religiously did not apply any lip balm and I got a solid 6 hours wear. 

During those 6 hours I did the following:

-guzzled a soup, and a sandwich

-drank 3 cups of mint tea

-drank 4 glasses of water

-Ran 45mins sweating in the gym.

So although I didn’t get the advertised 14 hours wear (why would you need to wear lipstick for that long? ) I would say you would get a 10 hour wear if you needed.   I definitely put it through its paces yesterday for 6 hours. 

My only gripe is that it was quite drying on me after a while, however to be fair I like to a have a slick of lip balm every 3-4 hours so to wear this on its own constantly was always going to be a massive ask of me.

I found with Muse the colour was very milky and didn’t quite suit my lip colour.  When I applied this with the applicator the texture was very un even and highlighted all the lines in my pout.   To avoid this, I scrubbed the lips with a lip scrub to get rid of any dry skin.  I then drew the outline of my lips and then smudged colour inwards to my lips.  I found this stains the lips better and not just the dry skin on top.  It gives a more natural look as well which I prefer.  With Ballet and Raven they aren’t really milky colours so I just applied with applicator as normal. 

What I like about this is if I was wearing their Mac lipstick equivalent I would be constantly be checking in the mirror that I haven’t got lipstick halfway up my face.  These are really easy to wear, low maintenance, but with the same effect as a say ‘Russian Red’ by mac sans the lip liner. 

If you want to ease into the bold matte lip I suggest you give one of these a try.  There are several colours as well as the bold ones.  Which one will you be choosing?

Thank you for reading

Carrie x