I recently had become a new fan of lip
tints and lip stains alike. I am so a late bloomer and had just
discovered the joy of using lip tints and stains. It started when I was
trying out Benefit's lip product over their counter in ISetan KLCC and I
liked the effect of the sheer tint of red the tint gave. So, being a
product junkie, I went online and did some reading on lip tint products
and The Body Shop's Lip & Cheek got some nice reviews and decided to try them out.
The Body Shop Lip & Cheek Stain comes in a long and thick translucent plastic tube with a very sturdy screw-on long silver plastic cap. The The ingredients of the product is pasted over the plastic wrapping.
The list of ingredients are: aqua (water), glycerin, phenoxyethanol, panthenol, acrylates/C10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, methylparaben, aminomethyl propanol, CI 17200 (red 33).
The silver plastic cap unscrews to reveal a slanted applicator like most lip gloss tubes has.
The texture of the lip
& cheek stain is jelly like and coloured a very dark cherry red.
The jelly-like texture made it much easier to blend. When applied there's a brief cooling sensation (from the alcohol). Like
all lip & cheek tints, the liquid must be blended over your lips
before the liquid dries up and leaves a spot of dark red on where you
dabbed the applicator. TBS's Lip & Cheek Stain does not really smell
of anything strong. From the bottle and on the applicator, the jelly
liquid looked dark red
and intimidatingly pigmented but once it is blended, it gave a really nice sheer
sweet red tint to the lips just as if I had been eating a red popsicle
or drank strawberry soda.
Left: A swatch right out of the bottle, Right: Blended swatch.
I find that it did not dry my lips even though I was not
wearing any lip balm at the time. Staying power of TBS' Lip & Cheek
Stain is very commendable which lasted for hours even after drinking and
eating. I only needed to reapply once during the day since I like the
colour to be very sheer.
Here's a swatch comparison of TBS' lip & cheek stain with Benefit's Benetint:
Left: Benefit's Benetint, Right: TBS' Lip & Cheek Stain.
Benefit's Benetint has a stronger pigment when compared to TBS' stain which goes on one shade lighter. They have the same colour group and I think two swatches of TBS' stain would get almost the same shade as Benefit's tint.
Verdict: I really like the effect of the Lip & Cheek Stain on
my lips as it goes on very sheer and looked very natural. It cost a
fraction of Benefit Benetint which the lip tint that got me started on
this lip tint madness. Would I repurchase: Yes, I believe I would.
You can get a tube of TBS' Lip & Cheek Stain for RM39 at any The Body Shop's outlets.
