Sleek Week Day 1 - Lip4 lipstick palette in Mardi Gras

Hello lovelies!

I've got quite a few Sleek MakeUP goodies to show you this week.


They comprise of 2 orders I made myself and 4 lipsticks which my friend Lisa bought for my birthday. I'm going to do a post a day this week (Mon-Fri) plus some make up looks with them too.

Today I'm going to show you the Lip4 lipstick palette in Mardi Gras, which is limited edition. I do want to buy other lip4 palettes, but as Sleek limited editions usually sell out pretty promptly I bought this one first.

The palette is palm sized, housed in the usual sturdy mirrored, black plastic compact you expect from Sleek. There's a small lip brush included, which I used to do all my swatches with. It's a perfectly fine 'make do' brush but not as precise as an actual lip brush, of course.

Click on photos to enlarge.


 
The left two shades, Rio and Firework are harder in texture than the the right two shades, Carnival and Masquerade, as you can see from the photo above. Rio and Firework are more like lipsticks and Carnival and Masquerade are like lipglosses. Strangely, Carnival and Masquerade are also a slightly different colour on the surface than when you dig into them. In both cases the colour underneath the top layer is darker so do bear that in mind if you're lucky enough to find a tester palette in Superdrug. They both appear peachy in tone before you scrape the surface. Carnival is a deep dark pink and Masquerade is a cooler toned 'Barbie' pink.


You can see what I mean here:


I found Rio and Firework slightly hard to work with. I used lip balm on my second attempt at a swatch with Rio (as the first attempt made my lips a bit sore) but then it looked slightly too sheered out. My lips are very pink - you can see some of my lip colour peeking through in the bottom lip swatch of Rio below. I think Rio might work best with a tiny bit of lip balm (or on lips which have been previously moisturised) or else as a layering lipstick. I think I'm going to try it over another lippie to see what it looks like.

Rio in daylight

Carnival in daylight

Firework in daylight

Masquerade in daylight


I'd say my least favourite shade is Firework, because it's a bit drying, followed by Rio - for the same reason. However, if you're really good at applying lip balm regularly your lips might be moist enough to carry them off brilliantly - do bear this in mind. My lips are quite dry at the moment, plus swatching lots of colours in one day really makes it worse. My absolute favourite is Carnival, due to the amazing colour and creamy glide it affords. Masquerade is equally as smooth, but the colour is a tiny bit too cool toned to be my favourite of the bunch.

I wore Carnival out yesterday. Hubby said it's the 'Best lipstick ever!' and that it gave me 'Lovely juicy looking lips!' so I'll take that as a definite plus.
All in all for £8.99 I think these lip4 palettes are a great way to experiment. They're small enough to be popped into any handbag or make up bag and the mirror and little brush mean you don't need to take a mirror or lip brush out with you. I actually prefer lip products to have a separate brush I can clean regularly rather than a doe foot applicator which gets dipped back dirty into clean product all the time, which I find tends to make them smell funny after a while, so they go in the bin.

There are two other lip4's I want to get - Siren, which is shades of orange, and Tease, in shades of red. There are 6 lip4 palettes in total at the moment, go take a peek! I'm not sure when they'll be in Superdrug stores.

I thought I'd share this too - a note on perspective.

I was editing the lip swatch photos and thinking 'I hate my lips, rah rah rah, I have to pout or I have no lips. Bum, I need to wax my tache!' and that usual crappy train of thought. Hubby looked over, saw a photo of my lips on my laptop screen and said 'You've got lovely lips!' It's like he read my mind or something! So just remember, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder!

Which colour of these is your favourite?
Do you think you'll be tempted?

Thanks for reading.

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