The Hunt For The Perfect Lipstick -- Revlon LipGlide Lip Color #175 ("Peachy Sheen"), #230 ("Sparkling Sangria")

It's been a while since I updated my lipstick hunt.  A lot has happened in my life over the last few months (most notably, I was laid off from my job a month ago), and other things have taken priority over writing about makeup.  (But not over using makeup.  We all have our priorities.)

Over this hunt, some of my perceptions about makeup and lip products have changed significantly.  The biggest is my newfound interest in lip glosses.  While I'm still not wild about the sheer, sticky, shiny glosses of old, there are new categories of lipgloss that intrigue me, particularly the category of "liquid lipstick", opaque lipgloss products that provide coverage similar to a lipstick but with the convenience of lipgloss.  I've found a number of these that I really like, and this review is about one of them, Revlon's LipGlide.



Candidate Lip Gloss #1: Revlon LipGlide #175 (Peachy Sheen)

Purchased: Big Lots (Sterling, VA)

Cost: $2.99

Candidate Lip Gloss #2: Revlon LipGlide #230 (Sparkling Sangria)

Purchased: Target (Laurel, MD)

Cost: $6.99

Brand Info:
Revlon, Inc., one of the few big-name U.S. cosmetic companies not owned by the big conglomerate brands (P&G, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder), was founded in 1932 by Charles and Joseph Revson, along with a chemist friend, Charles Lachman; the name "Revlon" came from Lachman's chemistry being the lynchpin joining the visions of the two Revson brothers ("Rev", "L", "On"). The Revsons started with a new type of nail enamel based on high pigment content instead of dyes, allowing the enamel to be more opaque with fewer coats. The nail enamel was a big hit at beauty salons, and by 1937 Revlon was a major presence in department stores and drug stores, becoming a multimillion dollar business within 6 years. By 1940, Revlon added full manicure products to its line and brought out its first lipstick. A contract with the War Department had Revlon creating makeup and related products for the U.S. Army, a product line honored in 1944 by the War Department for excellence. Revlon expanded to a full-service manicure product sales group with a purchase of German cutlery manufacturer Graef & Schmidt, and brought out its first perfume in 1952. Revlon went public in 1955, and its stock price jumped to a staggering $30 per share in just 2 months. In the 1960s, Revlon tried to diverisify into different divisions ala General Motors: Princess Marcella Borghese the upscale line; Ultima 2 the premium line; Revlon the mainline brand; Natural Wonder the teen brand; Moon Drops the aging, dry skin line; Etherea the hypoallergenic line. However, Revlon's department store rival Estee Lauder soon began diversifying as well, and many of Revlon's brands began losing ground to Estee Lauder's Clinique and Prescriptive brands. By the 1970s, Revlon's healthcare line (Armour Pharmaceuticals, Coburn Optical Industries, Lewis-Howe Company) was expanding but the beauty brands were getting squeezed from both sides: Estee Lauder was practically eating up the department store beauty counters, and CoverGirl was gaining ground on the drugstore/discount store front. After a disastrous series of takeovers and buyouts, Revlon is now owned by Ron Perelman's MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings. Revlon still owns its own hypoallergenic brand (now called Almay) and the Jeanne Gatineau lines, but its presence in high-end department stores is practically gone. Nonetheless, Revlon routinely sponsors invitations for "it" celebrities to attend awards ceremonies like the Oscars to show off their latest makeup innovations, proving that one of the oldest brands in the U.S. marketplace isn't about to give up without a fight.

The Tube: Opaque plastic, about the size of a fat ballpoint pen, in a color roughly approximating the product color. Domed lid is sheer plastic. Product name and information is written in gold on the opaque plastic portion of the tube.

The Product: "Peachy Sheen" is pinkish-coral; "Sparkling Sangria" is a reddish wine.

The Application: Revlon's LipGlide lip color possesses one of the best designed delivery points ever for lip gloss.  Instead of a traditional doe-foot spongy wand or a flat plastic top to a squeeze tube, LipGlide is shaped like a ballpoint pen and has a spongy oval tip set at an angle like a traditional lipstick.  Twist the tube at the mid-body join and product emerges on the sponge in small doses.  This allows for two things:  A smooth application with the spongy top, and absorption by the sponge to allow more even distribution of the color across the lips.  The color itself comes across slightly different than it first appears: "Peachy Sheen" actually comes across as more pink than peach, more rose than coral; "Sparkling Sangria" is a dark bluish red, less wine-colored than it first appears when being cranked up into the applicator. The texture is slightly sticky, but not unpleasantly so--more like a very moist lipstick than a traditional lipgloss.

The Taste: Floral, perfume taste. Not unpleasant.

The Blot: Surprisingly light first blot that looks very true to color (Peachy Sheen looks rosy, Sparkling Sangria looks dark red). Second blot is much lighter.

The Wear: Typical edge-of-the-cup, water bottle, etc. stainers, but it stays on pretty well (I got about 2 hrs. wear before needing to touch up most of the time).

The Verdict: Wish it came in more colors (Revlon lists 24 colors, but at Drugstore.com, only one color is still in stock; Amazon.com also has only a handful of colors in stock), but other than that, I have no complaints. Well worth adding to your makeup case and a good value for a drugstore cosmetic product.