Long-Lasting Hue Review
The quest for glassproof lipstick is over – our beauty expert tested makeup's most popular brands to ensure your lasting impression is left on everyone's minds, not your glass.

Want your lips to sustain that deeply-brilliant hue of Bordeaux while you sip a full-bodied Beaujolais Nouveau? While the lifespan of a lipstick may not be truly endless, the choices, within the long-wearing category, abound in price, texture and color.

It’s been over ten years since the first brands of this type hit the market: cloaked in innovative packaging, their sleek tubes touted exceptional staying power, seducing us into applying their rosy hues to our lips.

Unfortunately the first “glass proof” lipsticks were downright unsatisfactory. The color did stay for a bit longer than usual, but the products ultimately under-performed in almost every other way.

The truth is that nowadays, any brand with the moxie to market itself as a long-wearing contender for your cosmetics dollar is likely to be decent. The complaints and demands launched by the early brands gave formulators very specific criteria and as the technology evolved—they delivered.

The comparison grid below is not comprehensive, and again, we’re focusing on long-wearing, smudge-proof type products. With limited time and space to rate only a few of them, I zeroed in on the ones that consistently got high marks and very few complaints on beauty blogs and from my very verbal circle of makeup mongering friends. Bear in mind that these products cannot be compared to non-long-wearing lip color. If “providing moisture” is your number one criteria for selecting a lip color, none of the long-wearing formulas are probably for you. But, I think that, within these high-scoring performers, you will be able to find one that is a good fit for your preferences and budget.



One final brand worth mentioning is LipSense. This direct marketing brand boasts up to 16 hours of durability. Heaven help me if I have to look good for that long! This is not a product for a long-wearing first-timer, however, but for those of you competing in a beauty marathon it might be worth a look. I highly recommend the remover with this product unless you want to wear the color for an entire week— maybe that’s a value-added feature. It retails for $20 and comes in 32 shades. You can check it out and find a local distributor at: www.senegence.com.

If the brand you wanted to know about isn’t on there, forgive me. I only included the brands that I had a huge basis for comparison on in order to get a consensus. If you want to do more of your own research, you should know that a hefty percentage of the comments on beauty blogs is propaganda direct from the marketing office of the manufacturer. So, take it all with a grain of salt and read as much as you can before forming an opinion. A few sites that seem to be pretty good in giving you an unbiased opinion are: www.epinion.com, www.evillage.com and www.rateitall.com.

There were also quite a few products that got love/hate reviews; five stars from half of the respondents and curses from the other half. Those brands included: Revlon ColorStay and the original Max Factor Lipfinity. The main problems cited seemed to be similar: application problems, dryness and not getting the color that was anticipated.

Some Final Tips for Long Lasting Lip Color:

• With color issues being a common complaint, if you are a first time purchaser, it may be worth spending the extra money for a department store brand that you can try beforehand.
• Nearly all of the formulas are quite permanent so do be careful during application, and by all means…use a mirror!
• With two-step products, less seems to be best in the application of the base color. If you get too much it can be cakey.
• Some brands (again these are typically the two-step products) recommend up to two minutes to dry before applying the top coat. So, read and follow the instructions.
• If you don’t want to invest in an entire “wardrobe” of colors, most long-wearing formulas will sustain the durability of any lip color when applied as a base underneath them. Not all formulas are compatible though, so experiment with combinations before you plan on wearing it.
• High-tech polymers may defy your attempts to remove them with traditional cleansers. Again, depending on the brand, the accompanying remover may be a good investment. Oily substances, such as Vaseline, generally work well too.

Hollywood makeup artist Richard Dean was quoted as saying: “More than 90 percent of women want long-wear lip color but only 25 percent of them currently use it.” There was good reason for our reticence, but maybe now we can actually get what we want.