Yay for the Bay! In this series, for the month of February 2019, I’ll be featuring products from and around my stomping grounds, the San Francisco Bay Area.
This new matte cream lipstick from Benefit (a brand headquartered in the SF Bay Area) is the real deal. I would say “Get red-y for it” if I were a fan of puns (ha ha!), but instead, I’ll just do my best to describe it. It’s a red-olent, red-onkulously easy-to-wear matte red lipstick called They’re Real! Red On! Matte Lip Color, and it’s $20 and comes with its own little lip brush, which sits in that divot that goes across the pan.
Super fun and perhaps borderline gimmicky? Check and check. But it’s actually really good, and reds are hard, man. Especially opaque matte reds lipsticks like this. Most fall into the trap of being so bold and pigmented that they leave you no room for error, and the moment your lip edge goes wonky, there’s no turning back. I know that, at least for me, this is a turnoff, and it keeps me from wearing red very often.
Because — hello! — LAZINESS.
But Red On makes matte red lips easy, and not simply because of the little lip brush it comes with. You can actually apply this matte cream with a lip brush OR your fingers, and either way, it looks on point.
Believe it or not, I just applied it with a finger in this picture here. I just kinda smooshed it around, and it turned out perfectly.
The formula feels almost like a cream-to-powder formula, and the powder-i-ness (?) enables you to fudge the edges a little if you need to. So, even if your lip lines aren’t super precise, they won’t look that way (the whole world doesn’t have to know it, amirite?).
Red On also feels light and nice on my lips, and it doesn’t dry out my kisser or creep beyond the edges.
What a delightful surprise, really. 🙂 I think it’s a hidden gem in the Benefit permanent line.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. TGIF!!!!
