Last year Balmain’s creative director Olivier Rousteing debuted his first-ever capsule collection of lipsticks with L’Oréal Paris. 12 shades. 12 amazing models and $16 a tube for 0.13 oz.
Rousteing’s mission was to provide his hungry young audience such as myself with access to the bejeweled splendor of the fashion house's runways without hurting the bank account. “With the makeup,” he explains, “it’s a way to invite them to have a piece of Balmain”. And a piece I do have... or 4 to be more precise 😍.
Let's begin first with the packaging. It looks really luxurious on the eye, but when you actually get to touch it and feel it, it is kind of plastic-y and cheap looking. I was hoping it would be I mean I knew it's an affordable drugstore product but still I had higher expectations. On the front, you get the L’Oréal logo, and on the side you get the Balmain logo in beautiful gold letters. What’s interesting about this product is that L’Oréal invested in completely new machines to fabricate these lipsticks. When you turn them out, the L’Oréal logo is always in the front and the lipstick doesn’t twist when you pull it out. That way, no matter how you’re applying the lipstick, the logo is always visible.
The lipstick cases come in 3 different colours in a faux marble packaging, and represent 3 different tribes:
1. The Glamazone Tribe (green packaging): The colours in this collection are inspired by colours found in the Amazon jungle. They are meant to awaken fierceness & earthly sensuality.
2. The Couture Tribe (black packaging): This Tribe is said to be a celebration to Balmain’s historic Parisian couture origins.
3. The Rock Tribe (blue packaging): This collection celebrates breaking the rules, rebelling, and always being true to yourself, which perfectly describes the rock culture.
So let's dive into the shades that I managed to get my hands on...
1. Confession (Couture Tribe): an everyday, gorgeous, wearable coral nude shade.
2. Domination (Couture Tribe): a beautiful blue tone matte red shade.
3. Fever (Glamazone Tribe): this shade is like a lava explosion on your lips; a vibrant, but wearable orange colour.
4. Confidence (Couture Tribe): a sheer rosy colour with golden sparkles.
Let’s start with my fave shade out of the 4 called Confession. This coral nude shade has been my perfect everyday colour for the past 2 months. Wear only this, mascara and a little concealer and your makeup look is complete. On the eye it looks quite matte, but once you start to apply it on the lips it actually turns to a beautiful, creamy, satin matte that's not drying and last a pretty long time on the lips.
Next up is the fire-y red shade called Domination. In my opinion this represents the perfect red lipstick that I often like to wear whenever I'm going out at night. It last throughout the whole night without touching up, but still I do like to re-apply it a little bit and touch up. Unlike the shade Confession, Domination is in my view an all matte shade when applied to the lips. It's very comfortable to wear and I absolutely adore it!
The 3rd shade was such a surprise to me... and when I say surprise I mainly mean that I never thought I would see myself rocking an orange lipstick on the lips. This shade simply dazzles me! It's so vibrant and is such a hard shade to come by, especially in the drugstores. It feels just like Confession on the lips, satin, creamy and comfortable.
And last, but not least is Doutzen Kroes's shade called Confidence. A metallic rose gold with a matte finish. This shade does like to settle into the lip lines a little bit, so make sure to prime your lips prior application. You can experiment so much with this lipstick shade! Use it as a liptopper, use it on it's own, over lipbalm or on bare lips, whatever your heart desires.
My final thoughts on this collaboration between these two major brands are that this was such a huge success. Mixing affordable brands like L’Oréal with a luxury brand like Balmain is always going to be a major hit in my book.
The sad thing is that these lipsticks are incredibly hard to come by, so make sure to snatch them up from one of our drugstores while they are still available for purchase, cause I know I will!😎
To wrap this up, I'd like to post the amazingly addictive advert for this collection and a few photos of the complete lipstick collection...
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