The words lip stain truly sends shivers down the back of my neck. I think it’s because, way back in the day when I first tried one my lips had a real adverse reaction to it. The formulas were liquid-y and beyond drying. Worse still it would crack if you smile or talk and if you ate it would leave a dark ring around the inside of your lips—awful.
Luckily for us, formulas have come a long way since then. Now, we can opt for a creamy matte liquid lipsticks with a super-pigmented pay-off or a high shine PVC-like finish that genuinely sticks around but I had yet to try a stain that tints the lips without leaving any kind of residue. All I’ve tried either tint the lips well but the formula is incredibly drying or don’t stain them at all.
But of course, Fenty Beauty was going to be the one to remedy this. The launch of the Fenty Beauty Poutsicle Hydrating Lip Stain kind of dropped in the UK with little fanfair in the beauty realm, especially when you compare to some of the brand’s previous launches like first foundation or gloss bomb lip glosses. But once it made its way to #beautytok the hype went stratospheric, which is about the time that I started taking notice.
I think the thing that really sold it to me is the word “hydrating” being in the very name of the product. Surely Rihanna wouldn’t play us like that and say something is hydrating when it’s really not? But I’d tried dozens of stains and none of them had an ounce of hydration it the formula, so how could this? Well, it’s honestly like magic. It applies like a non-sticky lip gloss and then stains so the colour basically infuses into your lips instead of drying in. Genius.
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