Smart and Sarcastic With Dashes of Insanity: L'Oreal Colour Riche Caresse Stick in 176 Sunset Angora

Hi chickadees!

I've been hearing some rave reviews about the new L'Oreal Colour Riche Caresse Sticks so I was excited to try them out as I'm kind of becoming a lip product junkie. I seem to be on an endless search to find the right lip products for my dry lips. As of now, my favorites are still the Covergirl natureluxe glossbalms and the Clinique Chubby Sticks. The L'Oreal Colour Riche Caresse Sticks are not going to be toppling those two from their positions anytime soon but I did like the one I tried, 176 Sunset Angora. However, it wasn't love at first application and I still have a lot of problems with it.

Pros

Color: I would call it a warm, guava kind of pink. It's still too pink to really be a coral but it has a lot of warmth to it. The color is very pretty. It suits my complexion really well. There's definitely some pigmentation and a subtle brightening effect but its not too much. I wouldn't call it my lips but better only because you can definitely tell it's not my natural lip color.
Application/Glide: It glides on the lips incredibly smoothly. It's almost like a lip balm. I would say it's not quite at the lip balm level of smoothness, but it's smoother than a Revlon lip butter or your standard drugstore lipstick.
Finish: It is hard to describe the finish, but whatever it is, I like it. It's not matte or shiny or glossy or frosty. Really, it just looks as if my lips are naturally plump and moisturized. It looks very youthful. I'm not sure if this is due to the slight hint of shimmer (which you don't notice except extremely close up) or because of the similarity to a lip balm but my lips have a bit of a sheen to them. They don't look wet but there's a slight greasy shininess to them that makes them look very smooth and soft.
Balance Between Lipstick and Lip Balm: You get some of the feel of a lip balm with some of the pigment of a lipstick.

Cons

This lipstick reminds me a lot of the high-end lipsticks I tried early in my makeup buying career. I think particularly the YSL lipsticks but maybe also the Givenchy. It's been a while so my memory is a little hazy.

Application/Evenness: This lipstick just doesn't apply evenly for me. I've tried again and again, but like the YSL lipsticks I've tried, it settles into the lines of my lips. Now, I'm not old. I'm in my early 20s. The lines in my lips are just natural lines and all the pigment of a lip product is not supposed to gather in them. But with this lipstick, the pigment noticeably gathers in those lines in a very unattractive way. It's not that bad at a distance but I'd say if you were about 3 feet or closer to someone it might be noticeable. It's definitely noticeable at a distance of a foot or less.
Feel: Another way it reminds me of those high-end lipsticks is that it feels kind of greasy on the lips which keeps it from being completely lightweight. I think it has something to do with the ingredients but I'm not sure what it is.
Scent: I've never been good at describing scents. To me, this smells like makeup. It's a blend of that artificial makeup smell and something slightly floral...maybe rose-scented. I'm not in love with it but I could see how people might like it. It doesn't bother me too much as you don't smell it once it's on your lips.
Taste: Again there's a blend of artificial and intentional flavor here. It tastes slightly sweet but also like makeup, kind of artificial and maybe a little like wax or plastic. It's not all that offputting but this is definitely not one of those lip products where you need to worry about licking the product off your lips because it tastes so good.
Price: Obviously, it's a bit expensive for a drugstore product.
Wear: The longer I wear it, the more I get the feeling that it's fading or drying out. The greasy feeling fades but so does any sense of moisture and there is the tiniest sense of tightening. When I wore it for the day one day without reapplying, it didn't dry out my lips or result in any flaking or cracking but when I got home they didn't look great. I can't describe it any other way. They looked a bit sad. On the drying/moisturizing spectrum it's probably closer to the drying side.
Neither a Lipstick Nor a Lip Balm: You may be disappointed because you're not going to get all the sheerness and the moisturizing of a lip balm and you're not going to get the full coverage and pigmentation of a lipstick. This is just about what you want from a lip product.
Packaging: The product in the tube I purchased is not aligned properly. You can see it in the pictures below. (Skip to the end) I considered going back to exchange it but I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's just a little annoying considering this is more than what I usually pay at the drugstore for lipstick and yet it's poorly constructed.

CONCLUSION: I think I'll be keeping this because I do like the color and the color and formula are unique enough to keep in my collection. I think I would recommend it based on how smoothly it applies and the color but people may have issues with the lack of full coverage, taste, and smell. Also, I don't believe it's as moisturizing as other people have claimed.

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SWATCHES

I know that my skin looks a bit odd in the lip swatches below. I put on some foundation because I got a few nicks when I had the area above my upper lip threaded yesterday.