Raiding the Dream Hoard: Revlon Colorburst Lacquer Balm in Whimsical and Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm in Shameless

Greetings from my secure lipstick vault, fellow rogues!

Right, first up:  as you’ve seen from the title, it’s time to announce the winners of my little contest from the last Loot Alert post! Thank you to every one who chipped in and had a guess 🙂 The two shades I chose were the matte violet Shameless (which I think everyone guessed, heh) and the sparkly berry/purple lacquer Whimsical (don’t say it, Ooly! I’ll explain later). If you followed the comments, you know that this means the supreme winner iiiis…

Gwen! Congratulations, Gwen, you get the Golden Dagger +2 Award for Deadly Accuracy!

However, the prizes don’t stop there! For guessing Unapologetic and Elusive (complete with excellent justifications), which are shades that are next on my list…

Sonya and Ash receive the Assassin’s Eye Award for Sizing Up a Rogue’s Weaknesses!

Last but certainly not least, we have a mind-reading guess of Flirtatious, which was the lacquer shade competing hotly with Whimsical while I was standing in the store. For this…

Karen receives the Happy Mindflayer Award for Being Inside a Rogue’s Head!

You’ll be receiving your badges shortly!

 

Second Up – The Review!

 

As I mentioned in my Loot Alert post, I’ve been waiting quite a long time to get my hands on these products. I’d read lots of reviews and seen lots of swatches, but I was still concerned that I’d get them, and not like the result after all the hype and hyperventilation. However, I’m very pleased to report that both shades I chose get the ‘Rogueworthy’ Stamp of Approval!

 

Revlon Lacquer Balm in Whimsical and Matte Balm in Shameless. Susie the Bard was thrilled to disover that the packaging matched her outfit perfectly.

 

 

Revlon Colorburst Lacquer Balm in Whimsical is a pigmented glossy berry coloured lip product (Balm? Lipstick?) with a hefty dose of silver microglitter. The glitter isn’t actually overwhelming on the lips or anything, but little bits of it do hang around after the colour has worn away. Since I love glitter, I’m not complaining – it and the colour of the swatch were what led me to get this one after all – but it’s noticeable enough to be worth mentioning. This shade was very lightweight and comfortable to wear, and lasted about three and a half hours on me, enough for a modest dungeon raid.  On the lips, it’s much more vibrant and pink than I expected, but I like it all the same! The perfect colour for brightening up your day/catacomb explorations, with enough glitter to look particularly lovely in the flickering light of a torch or eldritch flame. Lip swatches are below, and arm swatches are in the previous post!

 

A rather blurry photo taken in direct sunlight to try and capture the glitter density in this thing…

 

Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm in Shameless is a glorious opaque matte violet lip crayon – the kind of purple thing that you normally don’t really expect a brand like Revlon to come out with! I have to say, actually, these two new lines, and the matte balms in particular, are really impressively bold. There are nice softer shades for those who prefer (can’t go past a good MLBB shade, myself), but then there are firecrackers like this one, and Unapologetic, and many others that get up in your face and go I’M AWESOME, WHAT AM I? 😀 Love it.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Extolling the virtues of Shameless. Now this was a colour that I was in love with from the start, due to both its saturation and the fact that I have a deep-seated love for purple things in general, but particularly lipsticks. I’d also never tried a matte lip product before, so I was curious to see how one would work for me. Shameless applies smoothly, with excellent colour payoff in a single pass, and is so much more soft and weightless than I expected it to be! It was totally comfortable to wear, non-drying (which I was worried about), and had a lovely soft velvety finish, but one that didn’t feel dry between my lips. It lasted for nearly 5 hours, which I consider to be astoundingly good wear – enough for a full dragon lair if you’re being efficient about your looting and didn’t get incinerated.

 

Shameless (left) and Whimsical (right). As you can see, Susie is still captivated, probably by the glitter in Whimsical.

 

The packaging is fine so far – it’s a chubby pencil, what can you say, really? If you’ve seen any of my reviews on Clinique’s Chubby Sticks, or own some of these yourself, then you pretty much know the score. Revlon’s packaging is perhaps not *quite* as sturdy-feeling as Clinique’s, but I have to say that I’m totally in love with the matte surface on Shameless – its not a sticky rubber matte, just a lovely smooth matte that’s nice to hold. The shiny lacquer balm packaging is of course alright by me, because it’s shiny and colour-coded. The colour match between the packaging and the actual product in all of these 20 balms is actually pretty decent!

These balms are mint scented, but it’s very subtle compared to what you normally get as mint scented. Those who are averse to mint probably won’t be thrilled still, because you can smell it, but I was more worried that they would have some kind of misguided ‘plumping’ (i.e. ‘irritating’) effect. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case at all – I got a tiny bit of coolness, no tingling at all, no irritation, and the scent was basically unnoticeable on the lips. Win!

 

Lip swatches as labelled! I’d like to make a special note here that the slight patchiness of Shameless is NOT Shameless’s fault. My lips were in really bad shape – you can even see one of the lip flakes in the ”Natural’ photo…

 

The Verdict: I’m very pleased to report that both of these were a win for me – a very nice introduction to matte lip products too! They’re pigmented, smooth, non-drying and last well. There are two finishes and 20 colours to choose from, so hopefully everyone would be able to find a shade that they liked, and a couple of new vibrant, more unusual shades to try! I’m so pleased these are finally here, and I’m looking forward to trying some more soon. The chubby stick type packaging is always welcome, as it’s very convenient to carry around and apply (also, crayons are awesome).

The Practicalities: Revlon Colourburst Lacquer and Matte Balms cost NZD 20.50 / USD ~9.00 each for 2.7g /0.095 oz, and are available from drugstores and pharmacies the world over, as well as Farmers in NZ and http://www.revlon.com.

 

Until next time, fellow rogues, don’t forget to check for traps!

Syl

 

I am an adventuring rogue, not a mercenary for hire, and as such, all opinions expressed here are my own, based on a genuine fondness for/interest in this product. If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to pin your parchment to the board (contact me) at thepaintedrogue [at] gmail [dot] com., or use the contact form provided! All images on this blog are the property of Syl unless otherwise noted. They may not be reproduced without permission – if you do, I’ll send goblin hordes after you. Plague-ridden ones.