the Balm For Keeps WaterColor Lip Stains Review and Swatches
Much to my dismay I’m so not loving the Balm For Keeps WaterColor Lip Stains. I can’t tell you how excited I was about this upon first release. The Muse simply adores lip stains and these looked thrilling. They are a dual compact featuring two shades of powder lip color and a brush. Wet the brush, swirl in the powder, and create a long wearing lip stain! Sounds awesome right?
It’s not.
Trust me.
The product itself and the idea behind it is ingenious really but I just personally didn’t like the finished results. One rave is it’s incredibly long wearing as in you can scrub your lips with acid and they’d still be sporting For Keeps Watercolor Lip Stain. Once it’s on, it’s there to stay. It’s not going anywhere! Eat with it, talk with it, drink water, smoke a fag, do what you will and this is not going anywhere. It’s very long wearing and gets a total rave in that regard.
My problem arose from the fact that the shades are terribly wrong for me sadly. I got both shade selections. One was Plum Berry / Brown Sugar which swatched on site looks like fuchsia and a warm brown peach. In reality it’s black, yes black, and a warm shade of bronze. I haven’t attempted using this shade selection since it’s up for return but I will say the bronze in the pan looks lovely it’s the black shade aka Plum Berry that scares me silly. The second shade selection is Petunia Pink / Rasberry Red which includes a raspberry pink shade that leans towards fuchsia and a poppy red. These colors were fab however both aren’t as natural or as subtle as I’d like and I end up looking a tad clowny with both on my lips.
My second rant stems from the fact that once water is applied to the packed lip stain it begins to crack around the wet area. Not a good sign. I couldn’t get a clear photo of this for you but once my wet brush touched this area it almost instantly started creating a crack the shape of the water mark and began breaking off. At the moment it’s sticking together but just barely. Hello mess waiting to happen!
Overall, the idea of the palette is fantastic so is the long wear formula but for once in my life I will say something is way too pigmented. The finish is just too pigmented for me and makes me look like a clown or a kid playing dress up. Add this to the fact that the powders begin to crack and you end up with a no likey for this Muse. Tone down the colors, improve the formula a little, and perhaps lower the price ($28 for the Balm seemed a tad pricey) and you might have a winner. For now I’m going to lean towards not really loving these sadly. At least I kept my receipt, one is definitely going back to Sephora!
Anyone try yet?
Wanting to?
Do share!
Disclosure: The following item was purchased by me for review purposes (and because I like flinging my money at makeup products of any kind) on Musings of a Muse. For further information please see my FTC Guidelines or my Disclosure/Disclaimer posts.