While on my days off I’m fairly easy to please makeup-wise, during the work week I’m very demanding of my lip products. They need to stay without smudging or fading in any weird ways, they can’t dry my lips out, and they can’t smell or taste or feel weird. I don’t have time to be constantly re-applying or patching up or wiping away or what have you; I just want something that will get the job done without any fussing.
So are these products weekday worthy, or doomed to be worn only on my days off?
We’ll start with the tint sticks.
Aritaum Honey Melting Tint:
The Honey Melting Tint has a really interesting fake-honey scent. It’s not unpleasant and doesn’t have a lot of throw – I can only smell it if I curl my lips up to my nose. The formula itself is not really slick to apply. It’s a little stubborn. The tint is very moisturizing, but not even a little bit sticky, which is not what I was expecting from a honey product.
I purchased this product in two shades, which look like this:
As you can see, this product has nicely pigmented glossy coverage. The pigment itself, if you look really closely at the lips, can seem like its settling a little into the lip lines, but the settling isn’t noticeable except under extreme scrutiny.
This tint stick leaves only a really faint stain behind; it’s not really a tint so much as a gloss stick with good color payoff. Although this only lasted for about three hours (if I wasn’t eating or drinking), the evenness of the fading and the slight stain left means this is something I could totally wear during the workday.
Aritaum Water Sliding TInt:
Wow, Aritaum wasn’t kidding when they named this a ‘sliding’ tint. It’s got a whole lot of slip to it. This product isn’t sticky, but it’s very slippery – almost oily – on the lips. It’s like a really thin lip balm mixed with a tint. This tint stick isn’t transfer-proof either, unfortunately. It’s got a very glossy finish.
Here’s what it looks like on:
One of the things that really irritates me about this product is that once it is twisted up, it cannot be twisted down again. So you have to be very, very careful about how much product you push up. You should also be careful about pressing your lips together if you’re doing a gradient look – you could end up with a really strange effect because of how slippery the product is.
This product can also get patchy when I apply too much at one time, or if I press my lips together funny for too long. For these reasons, I’d be unlikely to wear it to work where I don’t have a mirror nearby to make sure nothing strange is happening.
PeriPera’s Rouge Pang:
This product is right inbetween Aritaum’s Honey Melting Tint and Water Sliding Tint in terms of how much slip it has on the lips. It’s got a semi-oily feeling like a lip balm on the lips, just like the Water Sliding Tint. Like the Honey Melting Tint, I did run into problems with the pigment settling into lip lines, but again I couldn’t see it happening unless I smiled really hugely and stuck my face right into the mirror. The Rouge Pang is not transfer-proof, but leaves a moderate stain behind.
Again, I purchased two colors. Here are some pictures:
This tint is the one that sets the fastest and stains the fastest and the darkest. Even so, the stain itself only lasts about two hours after the product itself wears off. The lasting time and the nice, even tint mean that I could wear this to work easily.
TonyMoly’s Petite Bunny Gloss Bar:
This isn’t a huge gloss bar – I was actually expecting it to be a lot bigger, but the name does say petite. The pigmentation is pretty sheer but it does have a nice color. Of all the lip products, this one is the cheapest feeling – if you want to apply enough to get a more solid color, you will notice that the product feels a little grainy.
Here’s how the gloss stick looks with two layers on the lips:
Like I said, pretty sheer. The down side to this product (other than the grainy feeling, which isn’t bad enough that you couldn’t ignore it if your lips aren’t sensitive) is that it faded really unattractively – it disappeared from everything but the outer lipline, so I ended up with that weird 90’s outline look. Not attractive.
Would this product make it during my workday? No. Frankly, it probably won’t even reappear on my weekends.
PeriPera’s Peri’s Tint Stick:
This is without a doubt my go-to easy lip product. It’s a color change tint stick, that goes from yellow in the tube to a nice sheer reddish gloss. Peri’s Tint Stick has a high-shine finish, and is not transfer-proof.
Here’s how it looks after just a few moments on my lips:
The wear time on this is about three hours if you aren’t eating or drinking, and it fades evenly without leaving much of a stain behind. It is very, very sheer, and I apply it liberally, like I would with a lip balm.
Normally because of the shorter wear time I’d say that this wouldn’t hack it during my workday, but I love the color so much, and it functions well enough as a lip balm for me, that I wear it often.
Here is a swatch comparison of all the stick tint products:
Let’s move on to the fluid lip products, shall we?
Here they are, all nicely boxed up.
Etude House’s Color in Liquid Lips:
This product is the closest of all three ‘liquid’ (by which I mean not-in-stick-form) products to a Western liquid lipstick. It has a semi-matte finish and is extremely pigmented. It’s got that kind of ‘lipstick’ feel – a little less slippery than the tint sticks, which I assume is because it contains more pigment and fewer balm-type ingreidents. It doesn’t actually set like a Western liquid lipstick does – it never dries down completely.
An interesting thing to note about this product is that the doe-foot applicator has a point on it, which makes outlining and coloring in the cupid’s bow and the corners of the mouth significantly easier.
Here is how they perform on the lips:
PP502 is an electric purple color. It glides on smoothly and is fairly easy to manipulate in terms of getting good and consistent coverage.
OR205 was considerably more difficult to work with. At first application, it was a patchy patchy mess, and required a lot more working with to get decent coverage. Eventually I ended up with something halfway okay, but it was a lot more work than I wanted to have to put into the product, considering how well PP502 worked for me.
These products have a weird kind of fake candy scent. I don’t love it, but it won’t stop me from using them. Around two hours into wearing, I noticed a slight amount of feathering on my lips – they were pretty dry today so I wasn’t super surprised, just a little disappointed. I’d recommend wearing a reverse lipliner with these.
PP502 is weekend-only because of the color, but otherwise this product is workday-approved.
Innisfree’s Real Fluid Rouge
The Innisfree Real Fluid Rouge has a regular doe-foot applicator.
This product reminds me so much of YSL’s Tint-In-Oil – only with so much more pigment. This formula is pretty thick and balmy; it feels like it would be incredibly protective during windy and cold days, which is nice since I’m in for at least a month more of lousy weather. Like the tint sticks, the pigment in this product can settle into the lip lines, but again, that isn’t noticeable unless you look insanely closely.
The main problem with this product is the staying time. If the tint makes it for two hours, you have been very, very lucky, and if you’re the kind of person that presses your lips together a lot the tint can slide around and become patchy.
I purchased this tint in two colors, Number 6 Cherry Tart Red:
And Number 7, Dreaming Orange Red:
Although I absolutely love the colors on these, and I like how moisturizing the formula is, the random bits of patchiness and the short short wear time mean I can only wear it on the weekends, when I have the time to reapply often. Workday status DENIED. (Sorry Innisfree. I still love you though.)
PeriPera’s Lumi Pang
Peripera’s Lumi Pang has a flattened doefoot applicator.
It’s more balmy than the Color In Liquid Lips, but less balmy than the Real Fluid Rouge. It has a glossy finish but a more comfortable feel than the Real Fluid Rouge – it seems to stick closer to the lips, as it were. Despite the advertising, it doesn’t have a “non-sticky” feeling to it.
This product is not transfer-proof, and does that lip line settling thing that almost every other lip product I’ve reviewed in this post does. Again, it isn’t something that you would notice unless you were eyeball-to-lip with someone, but it’s still there.
While this product is probably workplace-okay, I more often find myself reaching for Aritaum’s Style Pop Pudding Tint in Swing Coral, which is a very similar color.
Lastly, just for the sake of comparison, is Dior’s Fluid Stick.
The Dior has a somewhat more stubby doefoot applicator.
Here’s what it looks like on. I purchased the color Rieuse.
This product is pretty similar to the Innisfree Real Liquid Rouge, only about three times more expensive (and the pigment is slightly more even) – but it also smells a lot like what my memory tells me is play-dough. Gross.
Because of the scent, and also because it only has a lasting time of about two hours (without eating or drinking), this product doesn’t rate workday status.
Here are some comparison swatches of the fluid lip products:
Which products would make it into your workday routine? Let me know!