little white truths

I received a ModelCo Party Proof cream lipstick in Incognito (a deep plum/oxblood colour) in my March 2014 Bellabox. I bought the Splendourful colour (vibrant orange) in the Bellabox shop later on, mainly because it was on sale and I needed to raise the order total to get free shipping ; ). Tell me I'm not the only one who does that?! Blo*dy hate paying for shipping.

A lot of people don't like ModelCo, perhaps in part because ModelCo products seem to be a constant feature of the various Australian subscription boxes and we're all a bit over them. I don't have any issue with the many products of theirs that I've tried, however - I think they're generally decent and good value.

Incognito

Note: the box and label on the bottom of the Incognito tube lead you to believe it's a dark purple colour. It's not. The colour swatch on my wrist above is the same as that when put on my lips.

The colour swatched on the ModelCo website is also misleading - there it looks like a strange purple-pink colour.

I'd call it a deep plum, but if you layer it enough, it goes so dark that it appears to have black undertones - more of an oxblood shade.

Does anyone else feel embarrassed about doing face-shots? I do. This is my first one ever! (Note to self: maybe put make up on next time?!)

And unfortunately, it's not true to colour at all. Here it looks red. The wrist swatch is much closer to the actual colour. In the mirror my lips look so much darker and there's definitely a black/purple undertone to this shade. I've tried taking the lip photo in different lights and on different camera settings, but they all look the same. Hmph. Hoh well.

Splendourful

Again, don't be guided by the swatch of this colour on the Modelco website - there it looks a bit browner/duller.

The colour looks brighter on my wrist and less so on my lips. I think the lip shot is truer to colour - wuhoo, maybe I'm getting somewhere?!

This one is much creamier than Incognito (see my comments below) and doesn't dry my lips out. In fact, they're so different in texture - you can even see the difference when looking at the lipsticks in the tube before application - that I'm wondering whether I got a dud Incognito.

Splendourful also goes on more smoothly and doesn't need a gloss. I much prefer this colour (well of course, I ordered it), which has a lot to do with my general orange obsession. Since I also have a coral obsession, to dumb down the orangeness of this I often wear a pale pink gloss with glitter on top and it looks amazeballs. I'll get a lot of use out of this colour.

Verdict

• First of all, they are not kiss proof, drink proof or party proof. They come off on your coffee mug like any other lipstick I've tried. Having said this, they do have better staying power than many I've tried.
• The colours are high-impact with a good colour pay-off.
• They go on as cream and dry to more of a matte product (Incognito being the more matte of the two).
• As for being non-drying, this is not true of Incongito. It does dry out my lips and cause them to flake, and it settles in/clings to dry patches. This means it needs a bit of work - your lips need to be buffed (more so than with other lipsticks I've tried) and if you're like me, you may find yourself needing to apply gloss either before or after application. I prefer before because this makes the lipstick glide on more smoothly and evenly. Of course, doing this doesn't help with staying power - but I'd prefer to reapply more frequently than be stuck with dry, flaky and patchy lips.
• I don't like the white case (feels cheap/tacky) but I do like the in-built mirror, which is much handier than I thought it would be. Having said this, I don't really care about the quality of the case - I care about the quality of the product itself - so I'm more than happy to pay less for these and live with cheap packaging. Also, the packaging is functional and you can throw it in your makeup bag and know the lid won't come off.
• A good product for a good-value price. That makes me happy!
• Would I buy again? Well, I already have of course. They're not my favourites but they're definitely a decent product. More than this, they far out-perform many other lipsticks with a bigger price tag in terms of staying power and colour pay-off. Particularly Splendourful - I'm very happy with this purchase.

Have you tried these? If so, what did you think?