The Hunt For The Perfect Lipstick: Five From Maybelline

I've become something of a lipstick snob during this hunting process, I'll admit. I miss the old days when I thought of "lipstick" as just something you pick up in aisle 15 along with the rest of the health/beauty supplies. There are some great lipsticks in the aisles of Target, Walmart, grocery stores, etc. But most of them can't hold a candle to their counterparts at department stores.

Case in point: This quintet from Maybelline New York. They're not bad lipsticks, but they're also not good lipsticks, and for the money I spent to buy these five tubes, I could have gotten a tube or two of my favorite M-A-C colors. I remember wearing Maybelline as a kid. But I don't remember the heavy cucumber taste or the distinct lack of appreciable weartime.

Anyway, onto the reviews...



Candidate #1: Maybelline New York Moisture Extreme Lipcolor, #190 (Royal Red)

Purchased: Target (Arlington, VA)

Cost: $6.50

Candidate #2: Maybelline New York Moisture Extreme Lipcolor, #215 (Midnight Red)

Purchased: Wegman's (Dulles, VA)

Cost: $6.50

Candidate #3: Maybelline New York Moisture Extreme Lipcolor, #360 (Cherry Brown)

Purchased: Wegman's (Dulles, VA)

Cost: $6.50

Candidate #4: Maybelline New York Wet Shine Diamonds Liquid, #30 (Plum Solitaire)

Purchased: Big Lots (Sterling, VA)

Cost: $1.00

Candidate: Maybelline New York Wet Shine Diamonds Liquid, #50 (Mauvey Rock)

Purchased: Big Lots (Sterling, VA)

Cost: $1.00

Brand Info: Maybelline New York, Inc.
Founded as a mail order business in 1915 by Chicago businessman T.L. Williams, who had created a mascara for his sister Mabel two years earlier, Maybelline (a combination of "Mabel" and "Vaseline") soon became one of the early success stories in the cosmetics industry. By 1920, the company was selling eyeshadow and added eyeliner to its list of products in 1930. By 1932, Maybelline had expanded to retail stores and grew into a nationwide company. With the invention of the first mass-market automatic mascara (that is, premoistened in a tube with an embedded brush), Ultra Lash, in the 1960s, Maybelline had hit the big time and was bought by Plough, Inc. (later Schering-Plough) in Memphis, TN. The company remained headquartered in the Memphis/Little Rock area until it was sold by its next owners, Wasserstein Perella, in 1996; its headquarters moved to New York City and the company took on the brand name "Maybelline New York". Celebrities such as Lynda Carter, Christy Turlington, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Zhang Ziyi, and Kristin Davis have appeared in Maybelline ads through the years. Today, Maybelline is a part of the L'Oréal group, along with a number of supermarket and department store cosmetic brands, making L'Oréal the largest conglomerate in the cosmetic marketplace.

The Tubes: The "Moisture Extreme" lipsticks come in a pearlized burgundy plastic tube, with a chrome ring at the midpoint join, and an odd curved top almost like a saddleback to the lid of the tube. On the bottom of each tube is a sticker whose color approximates the color of the lipstick inside, upon which appears white print ringing the color number and color name ("Maybelline" on the top of the ring, "Maybelline LLC, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A." on the bottom of the ring). The "We Slick Diamonds Liquid" tubes are clear PETE plastic content holders with chrome tops to act as a handle for the applicator; each takes up approximately half the length of the top itself. The clear tubes are printed in silver writing with the name of the product; on the bottom of the tube is a clear sticker with the tiniest white print bearing the name of the product and the manufacturer's name in a ring, and the color number and name inside the ring of text.

The Products: Royal Red looks true red. Midnight Red looks burgundy. Cherry Brown looks like a cherry coca-cola. So far, so good. However, "Plum Solitaire" looks like hot pink bubble gum with a ton of glitter dumped into it, and "Mauvey Rock" looks like a dusty rose paste also with a ton of glitter dumped into it. Somebody working the "Wet Slicks" department needs to take color ID 101.

The Application: The three lipsticks go on really smooth and really dense in pigment, but they have concave tips, and I don't think I need to go there again. The two lip glosses have doe-foot sponge applicators that hardly hold any pigment at all--seriously, just the tiniest dot remains even after you dip and swab hard against the side of the product reservoirs. And don't even try putting them on top of existing lipsticks; the undercoat will smear and get stuck to the wand, and you'll hardly get any gloss at all. HATE.

The Taste: The lipsticks taste like cucumbers. If you like that, great. I don't. The Wet Slicks have no taste, but they are gritty as all-get-out. Seriously, it's like rubbing fine-grain sand into your lips. HATE.

The Blot: Heavy, heavy blots. Royal Red turns tomato red on my lips, which is very disappointing. The lip glosses blot decently.

The Wear: Pigment from the lipsticks gets all over everything, especially your hands if you're eating finger food. Worse, if you sip from a bottle of water or coffee cup, you'll end up with a lip print that stays on the bottle and reprints itself onto your face when you take your next sip. The lipstick color does seem to hold on for a while, but only as a dye and not as a true lipstick cover. The lip glosses hold on a while longer, but start feeling tacky as well as gritty after a while.

The Verdict: Unless you like cucumber-flavored lipsticks or gritty lip gloss, my advice is to stay far, far away from these Maybelline products.