Review: Maybelline Color Drama Intense Velvet Lip Pencil 520 Light It Up

Maybelline are on fire this year! They've come out with some pretty snazzy new cosmetics; after buying their lip pencil Minimalist, Light It Up has now joined my army of makeup at home. 

It's a beautiful, creamy, blue-based red lip colour that glides on smoothly, is highly pigmented, and feels light on the lips. 

It dries to a satiny finish, and transfers easily, so reapplication will be necessary. Again, like pencil lip colours, sharpening it will mean loss of product, but they're not so expensive that it matters greatly. 

Above, zoomed out so you can see the full effect. 

I really love these little pencils - well done Maybelline, you've done yourself proud. 

Review: Maybelline Color Drama Intense Velvet Lip Pencil in '140 Minimalist'

The only lip pencil I own is by Barry M, so when I saw this lip pencil by Maybelline, I wanted to add it to my ever-growing stash of makeup, and this weekend, it now belongs to me... *insert evil laughter here*

It is a lovely pink colour with tiny little sparkles, which are hardly noticeable. It requires a little more pressure to apply on the lips, but the texture is quite velvety once applied. 

Above: minimalist applied to my bottom lip; my top lip bare for comparison. 

Above: zoomed out so that you can see the full effect. I'm only wearing a CC cream and a touch of mascara so please excuse my face... 

My thoughts: This lip pencil looks and feels good on my lips, has almost a soft matte finish but without drying them out. It has a weird taste - so no licking your lips - and it transfers, so reapplication will be necessary. The pencil is light yet feels sturdy, so it'll (hopefully) be travel and purse friendly.  

Review: Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet 03 Hot Pepper

You know I'm a huge fan of red lips. It's a lip colour that never seems to go out of fashion, and I hope it never does, so when I stumbled across this little beauty, I knew I had to have it. 

It's kind of a small tube, around the length of my thumb, but I really like how sturdy it feels. 

A quick swatch on the back of my hand... I love this colour, it's an orange-based red, and because I wear fake tan, this colour is best suited to me (without fake tan I need blue-based reds).

The application is easy enough, and it doesn't set so fast that you don't have time to play around with it. But once it is dry, it goes beautifully matte without drying out my lips. This is a big thing for a matte lip colour. Every matte lipstick/lip colour I've ever tried has made me go running for my lip balm, with ill-made promises never to do it again.

This lipstick states it has "light texture, extreme comfort and 24hr hold". 

I love putting these things to the test - let's do this!

 Above: my lips after 6hrs. I'd had two cups of tea and a huge Sunday roast. It actually looked better from a distance (my camera was around 4-5 inches from my lips) and still felt comfortable. 

Above: my lips after almost 8hrs. It definitely wore away on the insides of my lips and at that point I decided to take it off with an oil-based makeup remover. 

Light texture: Most definitely. 

Extreme comfort: It wore comfortably for a long period of time without drying out my lips (now that is comfort to me).

24hr hold: That's always a very bold claim, but for it to hold up through eating and drinking and still look pretty darn good, well, let's just say I'm pretty impressed.