Looking for the perfect lip stain/tint w/no flavor/texture
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free skin care · Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:19 pm

Hi folks, I'm forever searching for the perfect lip color product that I can wear, and still kiss my boyfriend without having him recoil in horror (he REALLY doesn't like the taste or feel of any kind of balm/gloss/lipstick, no matter how mild!).

I've never tried Benetint, but I'm pretty fair and I am just worried it'll be too dark, and it's kind of a gross/unclean thing to sample a tester of! Others I've tried are these marker-like things Sephora made but then discontinued, and same with the Body Shop, now discontinued. But I find most of the time these are too dark for my fair skin, plus they do taste kinda chemical-y and they come off easily with just saliva so that's a no-go! I'd just like to be able to have something to wear occasionally, when I know we're gonna smooch. Smile

I'm fine wearing my normal glosses, etc. at work or out with the gals. Anyone have any recommendations?

Oh, and I prefer a stain/tint, not a stay-on lipstick like Revlon makes - those feel so drying! Sigh, maybe I'll start using a pink Sharpie!!! Ah, the irony, I'm usually so anti-chemical but for this purpose I want something lethally strong that can't just get wiped off if I take a sip of water!

free skin care · Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:13 pm

If you use a really light hand then the Benetint can work really well and leave you with a really lovely colour.
Giorgio Armani used to do some lip stains which looked like felt tip pens almost and the colour really used to stay put, but still looked very natural. I think they still make them though I haven't looked recently.
I've been using a cheek stain by Pixi on my lips, which doesn't taste or smell of anything.

free skin care · Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:23 pm

Ooh, cool, thanks for the tip! I'll see if I can track those down. Much appreciated!

free skin care · Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:58 pm

Vincent Longo makes some excellent lipstains. Make sure you get the ones that apply with a wand rather than the lipstick style ones. Those are more like a sheer lipstick.

free skin care · Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:09 pm

Ditto Vincent Longo.

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:03 am

Have you tried the revlon "just bitten" lip stains (not the lipstick).

They are new i think and limited edition. they are really lovely. my friend got me to buy one and i really love it. it comes in 4 shades. she has a slight tan and looks great in blood orange but i am lighter and love the berry color.

Kristen~

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 5:58 am

skincareaddicted wrote:

Have you tried the revlon "just bitten" lip stains (not the lipstick).

They are new i think and limited edition. they are really lovely. my friend got me to buy one and i really love it. it comes in 4 shades. she has a slight tan and looks great in blood orange but i am lighter and love the berry color.

Kristen~

I have tried the Just Bitten in Berry. I really wanted to like this but it is just awful. The colour is nice BUT the formula. It is very liquidy and it settled into the natural lines that I have on my lips. I do moisturize my lips (balm nightly) but it did not apply well. The roller ball thing is just silly; but even if you used a lip brush or even your finger (then washed well) application is still uneven. I had really wanted to like this product.

Decades ago I used a Bonnie Bell cheek tint as a lip tint. It was a gel and very natural. I am looking for something similar.

Currently I usually wear a dark lipstick, blot then add gloss.

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 6:21 am

the Urban Decay Lip envy is great. Stays all day, applied with a wand.

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:24 am

Hi autumn,

i always use my finger too! it doesn't bother me though, cause i think you just have to for the lip stain products. i have the mac one also and to distribute it evenly i use my finger, it's because the lip stains are so watery.

in regards to the even-ness of the application, have you tried using a lip scrub? i used to hate lip stains because the application wouldn't be even but after using one regular, i love wearing stains and lipstick.

fyi, i use carekate's formula for making a lip scrub but you can also use white sugar + vegetable oil (or whatever you have around). i have some at the local drug store but the ingredients are questionable (sulfates for lips??).

Kristen!

Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:22 pm

I have the Benetint as well; I liked it at first, but soon forgot about it. I DON'T recommend the Bourjois stain. I purchased it at Ulta and it's similar to a marker. It dried out extremely quickly after not much use. For a while I was "recharging" it with the Benetint liquid, since that can be a little tricky to apply evenly with the brush.

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:29 pm

skincareaddicted wrote:

Hi autumn,

i always use my finger too! it doesn't bother me though, cause i think you just have to for the lip stain products. i have the mac one also and to distribute it evenly i use my finger, it's because the lip stains are so watery.

in regards to the even-ness of the application, have you tried using a lip scrub? i used to hate lip stains because the application wouldn't be even but after using one regular, i love wearing stains and lipstick.

fyi, i use carekate's formula for making a lip scrub but you can also use white sugar + vegetable oil (or whatever you have around). i have some at the local drug store but the ingredients are questionable (sulfates for lips??).

Kristen!

I really did try it a few times with different applications; also lip moisturizer under, etc.

I think the product is just not for me; good concept though.

Thanks for the reminder about the sugar and oil scrub.

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 8:58 pm

Yay, tons of brands! Of COURSE I'm going to want to hit Sephora and buy one of every single brand and go broke, haha. Ah well, at least I'll hopefully be able to try on each one in person and take home only one or two. Thanks so much for all the different suggestions, surely with all these I'll find a color that works! And I love the idea of recharging my Body Shop and Sephora marker-like ones with Benetint or something when they run out, that's an awesome suggestion. Thank you!

free skin care · Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:55 pm

Best lip/cheek stain WITHOUT any flavor or sticky feeling is YVES ROCHER. It comes in a bottle similar to a nail polish bottle and brushes on. It has the consistency of water. Yves Rocher is a Canadian company out of Quebec, and does it's business by phone or mail order. It is a highly recognized and reputable company. Very Happy

free skin care · Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:20 am

luvyourskin wrote:

Best lip/cheek stain WITHOUT any flavor or sticky feeling is YVES ROCHER. It comes in a bottle similar to a nail polish bottle and brushes on. It has the consistency of water. Yves Rocher is a Canadian company out of Quebec, and does it's business by phone or mail order. It is a highly recognized and reputable company. Very Happy

How long does their lipstain last? I've been using Vincent Longo...but find it only lasts until about lunch time...then I have to reapply it after lunch. Want one that WILL stay all day, because I just don't remember to put more on.

free skin care · Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:24 am

I've had great success with Revlon Just Bitten - wish it came in more shades!

UD Lip Envy works well too..it's just very heavily pigmented, so you need to work with it slowly at first to get the look you want.

BF

free skin care · Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:53 am

Funny, my husband is the same way; he really hated most of the lipsticks I wore when we met because of their smell and feel.

I've tried a number of things, but the most successful has been to use a pencil lipliner (I LOVE Dr. Hauschka) with a glossy balm. Fortunately, my husband really likes the scents of most of the Dr. H products. So I just use a Dr. H balm over the lipliner: I like the look, he likes the feel/scent, so we're both happy!

free skin care · Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:11 am

Ah, you're lucky shanno, mine can't even stand any balm or even lotion leftover from moisturizing my face. He's sort of anti-product - it took me nearly a year of dating him before I felt comfortable suggesting lightly some new jeans to his old acid-washed tapered Levi's; it'll be our golden anniversary before I get him wearing moisturizer with SPF or anything, haha. But he lets me have my concoctions, so I shouldn't complain. You should see our bathroom.

This is such a great plethora of suggestions - I'm totally all over the paint-on stuff, so I'm trying several systematically so I don't feel like I've spent as much money. Smile

My Benetint is in the mail from Sephora, and the rest I'll try one by one if I don't love how this one works. And the bonus is that I've always been afraid of blush, but this might just be the thing! Thanks again for everyone's suggestions, I'm going to make a Lip Stain List file and save it so I know what to browse for next time I'm shopping for makeup, there's too many to remember otherwise!

Luvyourskin, do you know of Yves Rocher will send catalogs to the US? I seem to recall getting those in our household when I was a kid, but I'm not sure.

free skin care · Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:03 am

I just got my Benetint and tried it for the first time. I love that it smells like roses, too, that's a lovely touch! I managed to knock the open bottle over on our white countertop, and we just moved to this new place with freakishly stain-prone pre-Formica crappy counters, but I managed to scrub it clean right away so it didn't set. All the little cracks and scratches are bright pink though, haha.

Anyway, I tried painting on a bit, and I liked the color (though it was brighter than I expected) but I found that it feathered unpleasantly at the little lines at the edge of my lips - I never even thought I HAD fine lines there, but it makes me look like I do! Other lip staining products I've tried have always been in the Magic Marker format, haha, so they don't seem to deposit as much actual liquid on your lips, so I've never had this problem. Other than that, though, I really liked it - does anyone know how I can prevent this feathering? I thought about getting Cargo's reverse lip liner but I'm not 100% sure that it would help here.

Also, I've never been a blush wearer before, but I dabbed some of this on my cheeks and rubbed it in, and it looks fantastic! This is totally my new (and only) blush, too!

Still, I'm not 100% satisfied with the color for my lips, so I'll keep testing the other brands people have suggested here...

free skin care · Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:06 pm

So I just recently got Cargo's Reverse Lip Liner with my last EDS order, and it really helped the Benetint stay put and not feather around the outskirts of my lips! I'm still in the market for other colors, and hope to stock up on a few when I visit a pal of mine in Portland in a couple weeks - but still, I'm pleased to find something that works so well in the meantime!

free skin care · Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:29 pm

same, am fair and hate texture, taste but want natural color. bourjois were fine but suck in regards to drying out crazily fast. i'm liking stainiac and the body shop's lip&cheek stain with the doe-foot applicator.

free skin care · Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:43 pm

I know you said you didn't want a semi-permanent lipstick because it makes your lips dry, but you must try Maybelline Superstay. It is very long-lasting and not dry and clumpy like Lipfinity or other ones I've tried.

I was pleasantly surprised by how it feels. It's like you are wearing nothing actually. You put the color on, let it dry, and the clear lip balm over it. It lasts for the entire day without drying and peeling. It lasts much longer than tints or stains which can also be drying. Try it. It's only $8. I like the Wildberry shade.

free skin care · Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:10 am

Cool, I'll have to give that a try! I may actually use the reader tip of re-inking a crappy dried-out "pen" like Bourjois with Benetint, because I find that little brush applicator to be really cumbersome. I think it's the reason the pigment settles into the lines around my mouth - I just get too much liquid with that brush! A pen would be much more controlled. Does anyone know if they still sell those "perfume pens" that you could fill with your own scent? I wonder if one of those would work!

free skin care · Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:19 pm

I went to Sephora yesterday and tested out lip stains - and I still have a bunch of marks all over the back of my hand, haha. I tried Urban Decay Lip Envy, a new brand called The Balm, and all the Vincent Longo ones (plus the Bourjois to see if they were as crappy as everyone else experienced, which they absolutely were). I wound up settling on a gorgeous Vincent Longo shade that's a deep plum - it would be too deep for me if I went overboard, but I just do a light coating. The wand-style applicator makes it so easy and clean, and the color has incredible staying power, even if you apply an oil-based gloss on top and wipe it off. Amazing! Thanks so much, flitcraft and Rjez, for suggesting this stuff! I'm probably going to keep trying all the other ones listed here, one by one, but for now Vincent Longo gets a HUGE rave from me for this product!

free skin care · Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:03 pm

Thanks for keeping us updated ginnielizz! I wasn't even looking for a lip stain, but now I want to try the Vincent Longo one too!

free skin care · Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:32 pm

Vincent Longo is the best lip stain I've tried. It has pretty good lasting power & doesn't completely dry my lips out. Definitely a HG staple. I wear My Sunshine for a warmer look & baby boo for a cooler shade.

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