Essence is pretty famous for launching a huge slew of products at once. And every launch is a surprise – lipsticks, blushes, face setting spray – oh my!
I’ve been making my way through some of the fall/winter 2016 products, and today I’m talking about the 2-in-1 Lipstick & Liner.
“This new lipstick is ultra-pigmented and combines the benefits of lipstick and lipliner into one easy to use product. Use the pointed tip to accurately outline lips and rotate to the side of the cone to fill them in. The creamy texture is super soft and glides right on for beautifully coloured and defined lips. The conic shape of the tip eliminated the need for a sharpener. Available in 5 shades.”
One tube contains 1.5 grams of product, compared to a standard tube of lipstick, which contains 3.5 grams of product. It is important to note that the Essence 2-in-1 Lipstick & Liners are not retractable, so the amount of product that you see is all that is included.
First up in ‘Vintage Rose (02)’, which is a slightly bright rosy pink, with a satin finish.
At first I applied the product with an extremely light hand, when lining, however, I couldn’t get much colour to appear. The pigmentation was lacking with this one. I applied slightly more pressure when applying the colour to the rest of my lip (on an angle, like suggested), and within 15 seconds, the tip broke.
Next up is ‘Lush Berry (05)’, which is a berry blue-toned red, with a satin finish.
As you can see, ‘Lush Berry’ is a pretty and nicely pigmented colour, but it’s a bit unforgiving if you have dry lips (like I was sporting in the photo above).
I like the concept of having the lipstick also be a liner, because you don’t have to worry about finding another product to match the exact colour of the lipstick. In addition, during the first application, you get a really crisp lip line, which is nice (not sure if it would be the same case on the 15th application). However, I think the execution of the idea lost me. The fact that this product was not retractable made for a few problems – when removing the cap, it was quite easy to nick the product, as well as the product having a bigger chance of breaking off up during application.
I got about 3 hours of wear time, but when removing ‘Lush Berry’ there was some major stainage, so watch out for that. Everything considered, I don’t think the 2-in-1 Lipstick & Liners will be replacing the standard lipsticks in my collection.
You can find the Essence 2-in-1 Lipstick & Liners for $4.99 CAD, exclusively at Loblaws.
Press samples featured.