Tuesday, March 29, 2011

N.Y.C. 16 Hour Smooch Proof Lip Stain Review + Photos

Today I've got another hyped product for you! Lip stains in general have been getting a lot of press lately as there is a trend for long wearing lip color. Max Factor, Cover Girl, Maybelline and other brands have all tried their hand at a stain and from the reviews I've read, they've sorta failed.

I saw these at Musings of a Muse (love her, haha) and wanted to give them a shot since I've never tried a stain. I also loved the color range.












I found these at Rite Aid for $4.99 each, but I've heard that Walmart sells them for under $3. I've also seen them at K-Mart for $4.99 as well, I believe. You get 0.10oz (3mL) in the package. For reference, the Maybelline lipstain has 0.85oz, so these are a bit on the small side! (However, it is worthy of noting that I think the Mac Pro Longwear lipstains have less product than the NYC ones)

I picked up #492 Never Ending Nude and #499 Forever Mine Wine. The packaging is simple -- it looks like a marker and the ingredients are on a sticker on the cap instead of being printed on the plastic wrapper (thanks, NYC!).










































Forever Mine Wine is a beautiful plum/berry shade that turns more purple on your lips than in a hand swatch. Never Ending Nude is a light pinky nude with a little brown, but nothing corpse like or unnatural looking.

It is worthy of noting that these do contain parabens, so if you've got a thing against that, definitely pass on these.

In terms of my review, nothing complicated here. These lip stains are really good for the price. I personally find the marker tip a bit weird to get an even line, but that is just my inexperience with using them. I had no feathering throughout the day, which is a big plus with a liquid product that absorbs into the lips.

However, I did experience some drying as the day went on. I will say that it lasted throughout the entire day... more specifically: two meals, plenty of lip balm applications and a ton of mouth wiping. Towards lunchtime, I was starting to feel like my lips were really dry! I have naturally dry lips and I used lip balm very sparingly that morning as you are supposed to apply this product to bare lips. Someone with better lips than mine may not have trouble with dryness. It wasn't extreme to a point of wanting to take it off, but I kept finding myself applying lip balm over top, which wasn't helping.

I took photos throughout the day to help show you:





























This is a fresh application to bare lips around 7:30AM. As you can see, the color pooled a little on my lower lip where I had a bit of a damaged area. It's not dead skin or anything, just an area that I probably chewed at some point.


















This is at lunch time about 4 1/2 hours later. I applied balm, took a drink out of a soda can, and then pressed my lips to this napkin. No real transfer except a very small amount.




























This is after eating, and I wasn't eating dainty like at all. I purposefully wiped my mouth a lot and ate sloppily to try and test the lip stain properly. You can see from both pictures that my lips are starting to look a bit gnarly at this point... the spots from the fresh application picture are more noticeable and actually look like they're bleeding. Ew. Honestly, from far away you couldn't tell, and it still looked fine.














This is at the end of the day, around 6PM (in sunlight). Some of those nasty spots had faded but overall, the lip color wasn't looking terrible or anything. I had a darker line around the outside of my mouth that I fixed with a napkin. After this photo, I ate another meal and then went to look at furniture... the color was still definitely there and my husband even noticed.

So to round out this review... I think these are worth a shot. I've worn the nude one, but not for a long period so I can't say for sure that it has the lasting power of the darker berry shade. Generally with these products, the darkest shades hang around the longest. I didn't notice a difference in the texture of the shades or anything. I'll post a FOTD with the nude one if you're interested -- I don't wear nudes very often and really got it to compare it to the berry shade!

If you've got REALLY badly dried lips, you may want to steer clear of these. But with summer coming, I can see myself wearing both shades and possibly others that I pick up ;-)

11 comments:

  1. i am someone with dry lips :( thus i never ever wear lip stain. I rarely wear lipstick cos of my dry lips :p the colours however do look ncie tho :)

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  2. omg these r amazing! I luv the forever min wine color and it really did last quite a while for..I wanted to try a lip stain and with this price you can not pass it down. Thanks for the great review too..the pics are very helpful!

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  3. Thanks for posting this. I have been stalking them at WalMart but I just wasn't sure since I hadn't heard anything about them. Great review!

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  4. I have forever mine wine and it stays around forever! just love it. it's almost a little ridiculous how hard it is for me to get off of my lips when i want it to, though. haha.

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  5. @Mandy: Yeah these are a bit of a bummer to be honest in that sense. My lips are a bit damaged so we'll see how they take it when summer hits!

    @Jess and Froggi: You both have nice enough lips to rock them! The reds in the line are really pretty.

    @Steph: Really? Mine comes off with a makeup wipe, but then I had been wearing it for a really long time so I think it was ready =P

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  6. I love lip stains and long lasting lippies - it's really difficult in my job to get the time to touch up my lips - the purply one looks wicked! Hope these come to the UK!

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  7. Those seemed to apply really nicely. I always seem to have the problem of it not applying evenly. For some reason they don't want to adhere to the outer part of my lips. Not the NYC, I haven't tried those, but just stains in general.

    I do love the Tarte lip stains with lipsurgence, but at $22 a pop I can't really afford them. :-/, but they are a chubby pencil and they don't dry me lips out at all.

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  8. Nice! I'm still a bit wary about lip stains though, since my lips are dry.

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  9. Want want want!! Seriously, I hope these come to Ireland! The colour really doesnt seem to fade, and I would probably reapply like once throughout the day anyway (I know thats missing the point, but I probably wouldnt be able to help myself), plus darker colours like this are such a pain in the butt to have to keep reapplying after eating etc. It still looks great even after you ate!

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  10. Hmm I really want to try more lipstains (I only have 1 MAC one) but I have pretty dry lips most of the time. I agree about summer, maybe I can try these then. So cheap!

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  11. thanks for the review, i think i'll be picking up the wine shade now!
    http://cloudsandcuticleoil.blogspot.co.uk/
    xx

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