My Current Obsessiong: Tarte Rise & Shine Lip Gloss and Stain in Nude

Hello Ladies,

For the past few days I've been obsessing over one product that I neglected since Christmas... and that would be Tarte Rise & Shine Lip Gloss and Stain in Nude. I actually got it as a gift from my brother, and it was part of Sephora's special Tarte gift set. It is not for sale there anymore unfortunately, because I think it was truly a great value. If you want to see the photos of this gift set, check out my holiday haul post. :)

Well I have to admit that I neglected this gloss/stain duo for the longest time because of how brown it looked. I never used brown lip anything before, and I was a little scared to try it! All I can say is that I should have tried it earlier.

Here is what they say:

Tarte's Rise & Shine Lip Gloss and Stain gel-based tint gives lips a long-lasting glow that stays all day coupled with a lip-enhancing gloss that gives the appearance of fuller lips naturally. The result is a pout that's pretty and polished. Even after gloss wears away the lip tint remains. Perfect for women who are frustrated with lip products that don't last, Tarte's Rise & Shine's natural lip tint stays on all day, and since its alcohol free it is completely non-drying! The smooth lip gloss adds a lustrous finish that give the appearance of fuller lips, naturally. Skinvigorating ingredients: Tarte's T5 Super Fruit Complex: a proprietary blend of the five most active super fruits (goji, acai, maracuja, acerola and pomegranate) loaded with naturally occurring, antioxidant rich nutrients and vitamins that have been known to deliver refining, anti-aging and skin-restorative benefits with each application.

Paraben free

Phthalate free

Sodium lauryl sulfate free

Petrolatum free

Synthetic fragrance free

Synthetic dye free

No Animal testing

Directions

Put on Lip Tint the same way you would gloss staying within your natural lipline. Wait about 15 seconds for it to set, and then apply gloss. Reapply gloss throughout the day as needed. 

Here is what I say: 
OMG that thing costs $21 by itself!!!!! I knew Tarte was expensive, but I honestly didn't expect for Rise&Shine Lip Gloss and Stain to cost almost, if not half the price of the whole gift set (I believe the gift set was either $44 or $49). This is not a product I would routinely purchase and for me it is firmly in the luxury category. And the thing is, what I got with the set IS a full size product, I checked. That said, I'm very happy that my brother got this for me as a gift because otherwise I would have (probably) never bought it myself.

As I said before, I avoided trying this because of how brown the stain looked, but recently I've been using a lot of lip stains so I decided to give it a go. And I love it. I never imagined that brown would look so good on me, being all pale and stuff, but it sure did. Maybe it is because the brown is not THAT brown, and looks more natural? Who knows, but one thing for sure is that now I want to try more brown lip products.

On one side is the stain, on the other is the gloss, so this part is pretty standard. Apply lip stain, wait for it to dry then apply lip gloss. Also pretty standard. Both are called Nude, but don't be fooled by how dark the stain looks. It goes on very natural, enhancing your natural lip color with a slight brown tint.

The downside of the stain is that it is very liquidy, so the color goes on patchy and hard to layer. And don't even think about commuting the ultimate lip stain sin, aka forgetting to exfoliate your lips (like I did here). This stain will pick it up in a heart beat and expose all the dry bits on your lips. While it's at it, it will also dry out your lips pretty bad, and that's where the gloss comes in to cover up the dryness and give your lips some OOOOMPH!

See how much better it looks? Outside in the sunlight it is even shinier. Oh, and I had no idea but apparently this lip gloss is plumping too? Because I felt a slight tingling on my lips, and some of the reviewers commented on that too.

Here are my lips after reapplying the lip tint & gloss once, and then wearing them for couple of hours. If you zoom in, you could see some nasty patches of ickiness on my top lip, which I'm assuming are tint/gloss leftovers from the first application. But I think from a reasonable distance it is not as noticeable, and lets face it, how many people will get in our faces to examine our lip gloss? Regardless, it is still disappointing that there is some residue left, since it's not like we can quickly exfoliate our lips before applying lip stain again.

Which brings me to another point, the staying power. It is OK, nothing special. The first time I wore this duo, I felt like it stayed on for a long time but every time I wore it afterwards the staying power was mediocre. Couple of hours max maybe, although it survived light eating and drinking. The gloss stays on much longer, and does give my lips a nice finish but since the gloss in itself is pretty transparent I want some color too. Hence reapplying the lip tint, and having to deal with 'residue'. (I did try to wipe off as much of old gloss as I could, short of crazily rubbing my lips)

Lip Tint, together, Lip Gloss

Here you can see very well how the lip tint applies, and this is exactly the way it goes on my lips. Thankfully lip gloss is there to fix things.

So overall I am pretty happy with this product, even if I have to call total BS on the non-drying lips part. The lip stain dried my lips out like crazy, it almost felt like they were stretched. Pretty uncomfortable feeling I gotta say. The reason why I am happy, and why I'm obsessing over it right not is because of the end result which I think is simply gorgeous. And because this product proved to me that I too could wear brown lip products, and opened the door to explore new stuff.

I am happy that I got it, but I can't bring myself to recommend it to anyone at a full price. If you have been wanting to try Tarte products for a while, and you see a set that has this Rise & Shine duo in it, by all means get it. I think that would be the best value for your money, plus you'll be getting other stuff to try too.

What do you think? Have you tried any Tarte products?

Just for fun, here are my EOTD.  Just a simple look, this is what I usually do when I don't want to bother with fancy eye makeup. The eyeliner is Urban Decay, don't remember the name but I got it at TKMaxx when they had lots of UD for sale.

I love how eyeliner color matches my glasses! That particular shade of red is one of my favorite colors :)

~ Lyuba

Update: e.l.f Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Raspberry

Hello Ladies,

Remember my raving review of e.l.f. Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Raspberry? Well today I got an update for you, and I'm not sure that I will ever buy these again. I still love the color and the moisturizing qualities, actually I still love everything I talked about in my review. My problem is the packaging. See for yourself:

The first hint I got that something was wrong was when yesterday I tried to use the lip gloss and no matter how many times I twisted it, nothing came out. So I twisted it more and more until I noticed that something just wasn't looking right. I tugged at the white part and:

It completely came off!!!! No wonder I had no lip gloss coming out! I tried to stick the white part back in and push on it, but I didn't work so I just ended up throwing the lipgloss away. BUMMER!

e.l.f. design your packages better! Have any of you had the same problem, or am I the only "lucky" one lol?

~ Lyuba

Review: e.l.f Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Raspberry

Hello Ladies,

Usually e.l.f. products are hit and miss with me, and I still have a LOT of products to go through after my two Black Friday and Christmas orders. Today I'm reviewing e.l.f Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Raspberry and it is a hit. You can see me wearing it here.

I realized I misspelled lipstick in every photo lol, but I didn't feel it was worth the trouble to redo the whole thing

I wanted to try some e.l.f. lip products, and since I'm not a big lip gloss girl I didn't feel bad about spending the whopping $1.00 (except it was half off when I bought it lol) on a lip gloss that potentially wouldn't work for me. This is what e.l.f. says:

e.l.f Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Raspberry therapy is here. Intensive hydrating agents along with natural pigments leave lips with long-lasting color and moisture. This luscious liquid lipstick creates wearable color that flatters a multitude of skin tones and looks.

This is what I say:
I had my doubts about it, well... because it is a lip gloss even if they call it liquid lipstick, and I always have my doubts about lip glosses. However, this liquid lipstick really impressed me. First, the color swatch on the website is off, but the little square of color is closer to real thing. The smell is sweet minty something, but I'm very bad with smells so I can never describe them precisely.  Either way, the smell is not very strong and disappears almost instantly.

It took a lot of turns for the product to finally to come out, but to e.l.f's credit they do tell you to twist 10-12 times before first application. By the time something came out, it looked like half a tube was gone. Maybe this is a product waste, but for that price I will not complain. Plus, I like to feel like I can actually finish the product. I do not enjoy spending a lot of money for little of product, but for a $1 bargain it is not that big of a deal to me.

I am happy with the color pay off too, it makes my lips look nice and pink but still natural. I like my lips more natural looking, mostly because I can't be bothered to reapply the lip products except a lip balm. I actually reapplied this without a mirror and it worked just great. I love that, because I rarely have a mirror on me.

The staying power is ok too, it lasted for at least 2 hours until I ate something. The color was gone after eating, but moisture was still there.This is probably the most important consideration for me, because I am obsessed with my lips being moisturized at all time.

So overall I am pretty impressed. The quality of the product for the price is amazing, and you can have lots of colors without breaking the bank.

Have you tried any of e.l.f's Luscious Liquid Lipsticks? If yes, what do you think?

~ Lyuba