Lipstick Diaries, Round Three: Glossier Like and Fenty Freckle Fiesta

Glossier recently reformulated and repackaged their Generation G lipsticks. I want to be less wasteful, so I'm holding off on replacing the shades I already own, including Glossier Like. This color is, no joke, just about the exact same shade as my natural lips, perhaps a hair darker and more mauve. On the one hand, wearing it makes me feel a bit silly because there's so little impact, but on the other hand, it's easy to apply without a mirror and it makes me feel put together. This is my second and likely last tube of Like, just because I prefer other shades that actually change the color of my lips.

The quality of that second picture is far below my usual standard, I know, but I won't be retaking it because I've decided to purge Fenty Freckle Fiesta. As beautiful as the color is, it just doesn't flatter me much, and I never reach for it of my own volition. It doesn't help that the round bullets are not my favorite; I'm sloppy and find it difficult to get a smooth, straight lipline with them. At the end of the day, if I can't see myself eventually finishing a tube of lipstick, I shouldn't keep that tube around, no matter how pretty the color is.

Try This: Create New Lip Colors

I know super huge, macro lip shots freak some people out, but I think it's worth it if it can save us some money. Obviously, lipstick is my weakness, and when I see a blogger wearing an incredible new shade or a makeup artist showcasing a formula with a unique finish, I want to rush out and buy another tube pronto. But the truth of the matter is that I don't have a ton of money to buy new products, and I don't really need them, anyway. When I look at my collection of over a dozen lipsticks, assorted balms, and various pencils, I realize I can make most colors with a bit of mixing.

Take this first lip as an example. Lisa Eldridge did a video showcasing a variety of bright-but-not-stark lip looks, and I was weirdly attracted to this sort of "popsicle"variation. (I say "weirdly" not because it's an odd look, but because glossy isn't usually my style.) I stopped myself from buying a new Korean lipstick and tried mixing shades instead. I used Portrait Peach for the overall color and some Fenty Freckle Fiesta for a bit more depth, and I layered Fresh Sugar Caramel Lip Balm under and over to create that more sheer, shiny finish. Boom: no new lipstick required!

Pencils are also an excellent mixing tool. Using them just around the edges of your mouth is a great way to get a clean shape, create depth, and prevent feathering, but it can also alter the shade of the lipstick on top. Rodin So Mod is a bit too milky and pastel for me to wear on its own, so I always use a dash of NYX Nude Pink around the edges to keep my mouth from disappearing. If you cover your entire lips in the darker, more peach liner, then So Mod becomes a less pastel, but still milky and mod-ish shade. I love this look so much, I've finally decided to let go of MAC Faux lipstick. (It's in the same color family, just more purple and muted, which isn't as flattering on my skintone.)

Granted, this only works if you have a small collection of lip products to begin with. If you only own a couple of lipsticks or a single pencil, your options might be more limited. Yet with one gloss, six pencils, and sixteen lipsticks, my collection is not huge by blogger standards, and I can still come up with a range of new colors. Even if you only have two lip products, it's worth smearing them together to see what you can get.

Also, a word of advice on matte liquid lipsticks: you can still blend most of them. You'll just have to move quicker. Some people do one color on their top lip and another on their bottom, then rub their lips together, but I find that a lot of modern liqui-mattes dry too quickly for this, and it can mess up the lip line. You can try dabbing a bit of each shade on the back of your hand, then blending them together and applying them with a lip brush for precision.

REVIEW: Fenty Beauty Mattemoiselle Plush Matte Lipsticks

NOTE: This post was meant to go live on Monday, February 19th, but I accidentally posted the original draft. Hence, there may have been some typos I did not address immediately (I apologize), and there will not be another post until later next week. Oops. See you next weekend!

I have zero legitimate excuses for buying more lipsticks, even with a gift card and a reasonable price tag. The truth of the matter is that I adore Rihanna, I want to support inclusive brands like Fenty, and I just fucking love lipstick. That said, I held off on testing the Mattemoiselle lipsticks for a while because most of the rave reviews were coming from big YouTubers who received the entire shade range in an admittedly stunning PR package. The final push? Talented, smaller creators I like started wearing Freckle Fiesta, which was the shade that called to me from the beginning.

The Fenty Mattemoiselle Plush Matte Lipsticks retail for $18 each. That seems like a steal, but these lipsticks are tiny: each one contains just 1.7 grams of product, making them almost half the size of the average high-end lipstick. Not surprisingly, the tubes are physically small as well, and the actual lipstick inside is about the thickness of a cigarette. Beyond that, I like the look of the packaging just fine. The tube is a very lightweight, silver plastic, and the lipsticks have "FB" stamped in the top (though this disappears after your first application).

From left to right: Fenty Candy Venom, NARS Michiyo, Fenty Freckle Fiesta, Besame Chocolate Kiss.

There are currently 14 shades in the range, and it's an eclectic mix. You get soft, "work appropriate" shades like Spanked (dusty rose), bold and bright colors like Griselda (burgundy), and a handful of unique, not-in-most-lipstick-range shades like Clapback (navy) and Midnight Wasabi (green). While I disagree that each individual shade will "flatter all skintones"--Up 2 No Good will turn white on deeper skin, for instance--I think the range has something for everybody, and a lot of the colors are very flexible.

I picked up the bright pink, Candy Venom, and the "spiced terracotta," Freckle Fiesta. Both shades seem to work on just about everybody, though Freckle Fiesta definitely seems to read more orange than brown on dark skin. As you can tell by the swatches, they are densely pigmented. I compared them to the two most similar shades in my collection, but they still stand out: Candy Venom is darker and more purple than NARS Michiyo, and Freckle Fiesta is more yellow and less muted than Besame Chocolate Kiss.

The Fenty Mattemoiselle lipsticks have an incredibly smooth, soft texture that glides on to the lips with ease and provides opaque color in a single swipe. If I had to compare the texture to anything, I'd compare it to a cream-to-powder blush or foundation, not because it's dry or dusty, but because it has that silky smoothness to it. It definitely feels less "wet" and creamy than most traditional lipsticks. They're very forgiving on fine lines and feel weightless on the lips. "Plush" defines them aptly.

I found these lipsticks slightly drying, but only slightly. Your lips may feel a tad parched at the end of the day, and you'll definitely want to wear some balm afterwards. However, they are comfortable for a solid 8+ hours and do not cause flaking or shriveling.

In terms of wear, you're going to get above average lasting power for these puppies. They don't feather much, but they will smear with enough pressure, and they will fade a bit if you eat a full, sloppy meal. I like to apply, blot, and reapply with all of my lipsticks, including these, because it gives me a bit more staying power.

Here's a close-up of my lips with both colors so you can see the texture. Again, it's an incredibly smooth and flattering formula.

Now, that sounds absolutely stellar, but I have to tell you that one thing about the Mattemoiselle lipsticks disappointed me in a big way: the packaging. I'm no lipstick novice, but I found it very tricky to get sharp, even lines with the tiny, rounded lipstick bullets; I had to touch up the edges of my lips with a q-tip every time, and it's still not as sharp as I'd normally like it. I also noticed that a little bit of lipstick always smeared on to the edges of the tube, even when they were brand new and just-opened, as if the lipstick wasn't placed straight in the tube. You can actually see this little blob of lipstick "spillage" in the header image of this post.

If it weren't for the packaging, I'd probably give these lipsticks a 5 out of 5. That said, I will be returning Candy Venom because I don't think it flatters me very much. Freckle Fiesta, though...I know it makes me look a tad sallow in some pictures, but for whatever reason, I still love that color and I just can't quit it. At the very least, I'd like to see if I can finish this tube up. It shouldn't be too tough given the small amount of product in it.

RATING: 4 out of 5

Fenty Beauty products are available at Sephora.