Favorite Lipstick Brands + Swatches

4:31 PM

I'm not a huge daily lipstick person. A lot of times I'll leave the house without anything on my lips at all, but I will say that I have grown up a bit from my "lipgloss everyday" days. I used to be so against lipstick because I would occasionally try my mom's old Lancome lipsticks that would always dry out my lips and smelled like grandma makeup. You know what I'm talking about, it's like the smell of Cover Girl blush. Yucky.

Since then, I have found a couple exceptions to my previous rule of disliking lipsticks.

From low-end to high-end, I will start with my favorite inexpensive makeup line, NYX. Ahh, NYX, how do you do it over and over again? I have only tried their round lipsticks but I have at least 10 of them. Although one anti-lipstick-biased person such as myself would think cheaper makeup would mean dry lips, but this is not the case! NYX lipsticks are smooth, creamy, and have wonderful pigmentation. This is no sissy red or sheer nude to be found. During sales, I stock up on these in colors I wouldn't jump to buy from other brands so I can test different looks out. Crazy thing is that they run at $3.50 full price. Crazy good deal!



You can find a lot of my NYX lipstick swatches here, but here are a couple of lip swatches of NYX round lipsticks:

Indian Pink


Jupiter


Full face wearing Jupiter


And my favorite red, Snow White (entry with this look here)




Next is a drugstore brand that I tried on a whim and ended up loving, Maybelline Moisture Extreme Lipcolor. This stuff smells like watermelon candy! If you like that, you will LOVE this stuff. It also feels like butter. Super moisturizing and comfortable on the lips. It doesn't last super long, but as moisturizing as it is, I didn't really expect it to. I just wish it were easier to tell the color from the drugstore stands but I suppose that's a trade off for paying a much lower price. $5.50 on drugstore.com.




I own Born With It and Berry Sorbet. Born With It is probably my favorite MLBB (my lips but better). It's a nice everyday shade that adds just a bit more pink to my natural color with a little hit of gold shine.



Berry Sorbet is more of a raspberry color with a lot of pink tones. I actually like wearing this color as a lighter wash for a nice pink-stained mouth, but I wanted to show you a true color swatch here. Either way, it's quite pretty.




I will only quickly mention MAC because I only own 1 MAC lipstick, Big Bow from the Hello Kitty collection, which I wore for this look. I love it. It's a buildable and sheer hot pink with blue flash and has pretty good lasting power. I need more!!! $14 each.




And finally, I have a YSL Rouge Pur Shine Sheer Lipstick. I was hoping it would look as nice as it does on Pandablush's swatch but I don't have the cute, pale pink lips that she does. Regardless, I really love how this lipstick feels more like a gloss than a lipstick but without the stickiness. It's a very pretty neutral but, like most sheer and glossy lipsticks, just doesn't have great staying power. Maybe more worth it in a different color? I'm willing to think so. $30 each.



Ridiculously pretty packaging though, isn't it?


It's a good balance for darker shadow.





All in all, I have to say that as price goes up, you are mostly just paying for packaging. The higher end lipsticks I own don't actually FEEL considerably (or at all) better and don't last longer. This is just my personal and quite limited experience though so absolutely prove me wrong and tell me what your very favorite lipstick color and brand is! Oh, and tell me WHY you love it. I want to expand my lipstick horizons like a proper grown woman. ;)

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18 comments

  1. oooo i love the maybelline shades you picked out :) i had a few but gave them away.. i just have so many lip stuff that i don't get to use them all! so keep your collection small haha :)

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  2. always beautiful! i love the red lips. it's total hotness!!

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  3. hey gorgeous! WOW! You have the perfect lips! I really want that YSL lippie- by chance do you have any other YSL lippies that you can swatch?

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  4. Wow..u look soooooo pretty with the red lipstick^^

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  5. I love maybelline moisture extreme!!! It's the only brand i've bought since i use lipsticks~ haha
    Really wanna try NYX :)

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  6. The colours looked great on you, great choice. I need darker shades (or more opaque), as my lips are pigmented but it's helpful to know some good brands out there

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  7. Your so beautiful, I love all them lippies to!

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  8. Beautiful colors! I really want to try the NYX round lipsticks now. My lips are so dry and allergic-prone that I've stuck with high end brands for a while... but it's still so hard to find colors that are pigmented enough to show up on me! Hmmm...

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  9. NYX has nice lipsticks! I want to try them, only that they cost $10.50 in Canada! So I pay a little more and go with MAC.

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  10. ooh pretty colors! love the last one the most :)

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  11. This post was really helpful, as I'm about to order NYX lipstick and snatch up some of those Maybelline lipsticks as soon as they go on sale!

    I've been subscribed to your blog for a couple weeks now, and I really like it! You should do vlogs on Youtube!

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  12. lol i have that black spot on my lips as well!! what a coincidence^^

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  13. wow!! thanks for sharing and u have a nice blog!u have a nice lips!

    can i ask for your advice on NYX indian pink? i love the colour.do u find it hard to match with your make up? the color falls in the category of bright not not as bright as red.

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  14. i went to the site to find those ysl lipsticks and i can't find them there! help! 8)

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  15. Hi Jen,

    I have a problem with my lipsticks and lip glosses caking up and turning whitish, especially in the corners of my lips. Any idea what causes this and how it can be fixed? Thanks!

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  16. Do you like Korean makeup better than US products? What Korean products (especially eye makeup) would you recommend?

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