Product: Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain

Cost: around $9

What they say it does: “Stain + Balm for a beautiful wash of kiss-proof color and moisturizing, soft shine”

Our review: Our love for red lipstick is well documented, as is our quest to find something in between Kiehl’s lip balm and 3 coats of matte, red lipstick. While reading one of our favorite magazines last week, we saw a small picture of a lovely colored lip – and, it had been done with lip stain and gloss. How easy! And, best of all, how Diet Coke – Twizzler – kissing the dog on her head friendly! No more feathering! No more eating funny ways to preserve lip color. Bring it on!

We couldn’t find the lip stain that was recommended, but we saw the Revlon Just Bitten (really, Revlon? You had to jump on the vampire bandwagon too? For shame, makes of Real Raisin and Fire and Ice). We picked it up in (gah) Frenzy – a pinky, berry color. We tried it on the second we got home, and we were in love. It was so easy to apply! Perhaps this is obvious to others, but it’s really just a marker. With a stick of lip balm on the other end. We were super into it, and we swore to wear it out and about the next day.

We did, and we admit; our love faded faster than the lip stain. It applied spotty – this was most noticeable in the light of day. There were just some spots on our lips that refused to hold the color. It wore so spotty it almost looked as though we had a disease. Sure, we could drink all the Diet Coke from the bottle we wanted, but our lips looked like we’d be smacked by flying raspberries. We’re not sure if the product is meant to be long wearing (it’s not), or just easy/pretty (it is). In a pinch, it’s something we’d throw on if we felt compelled to have some kind of lip color and didn’t have time for lipstick, or if we were driving or something. We’ll keep it in our purse as a backup. But otherwise? Eh…we’d suggest skipping it.

In short: For a $9 backup, it’s fine. For a regular addition to our makeup bag, we’ll pass.

Our grade: C

-LB

Cost: $34 (items purchased separately would be around $63)

What it is:
A limited-edition kit featuring a handpicked collection of our favorites from Smashbox, plus a how-to guide.

What it does:
Sephora has teamed up with Smashbox to bring you this exclusive “Beauty in a Box” set featuring our latest product fixations, plus a step-by-step tutorial. Available for a limited time only.

This set contains:
- 0.04 oz Limitless Eye Liner in Onyx
- 0.06 oz Cream Eye Liner in Caviar
- 0.12 oz Jet Set Waterproof Eye Liner in Midnight Black

Our review: We had a credit for Sephora that we were desperate to spend. We bought some lipstick for our co-editor, some fancy bath products for our mom, but we couldn’t find anything we were crazy about. We have a ton of mascara, 8 red lipsticks, 2 gold eyeshadows, and 1 pot of black eyeliner. We don’t wear anything else, ever – we’ve tried. It doesn’t work. While we love our Clinique Cream Eyeliner, that is like, pro-level use only. It is smeary and slide-y for the first 23 seconds, and then it dries into never, ever budging despite how much water, eye makeup remover, and spit you use. We love the definition, we hate the hassle.

We saw the Smashbox kit while we were walking around Sephora, and we were at first intrigued, and then immediately suspicious. How could it be so cheap? Perhaps they’re crappy colors, or weird, miniature sizes. We grabbed the box and went to the Smashbox area. Nope, all black. And, surprisingly, nothing is smaller than what’s available at retail. One of the little pots is even the tiniest bit bigger. So, 3 different black eyeliners for $34? Not a bad deal. Not a steal, if you’re not brand particular – but definitely a reasonable price.

We bought it, took it home, and started trying it on. We have to say: we are in love. The pencil eyeliner – something we never use – is quite lovely. It flows nicely, it doesn’t tug, and it has a delightful, albeit menacing, looking sharpener in the cap. The cream eyeliner is a different consistency than we’re used to – but we were so happy that when we got it all over our eyelid and our cheek, it cleaned up easily and quickly. The star for us is really the waterproof gel eyeliner; we put it on last night, and rubbed our eyes like a sleepy toddler for quite some time. It. Didn’t. Budge. When we woke up after forgetting to wash it off? It still looks good. This has replaced Clinique as our favorite. We’re converts.

We will say – the “how to guide” is worthless. Unless our package was missing some kind of guide or book, it’s like 2 sentences on the inside of the box. You’d do better to watch YouTube, or just play around in the mirror. Our only real gripe about this kit? It doesn’t come with a brush, and 2 of the products require it. It’s annoying, but honestly – the kit-sized brushes that come with cream/gel eyeliners are usually crappy anyway. Spend the extra $15 and get yourself a decent brush (this is ours).

In short: If you love black eyeliner, or want to try a few different kinds, we’d 100% recommend it. It’s a great deal, and each product is top notch on its own. Bummer it doesn’t come with a brush, and the “how to guide” is a bit worthless.

Our grade: A-

-LB

Yesterday we shook each of the Jonas Brothers’ hands twice. (One of them, three times.) We swear to God we still can’t tell them apart. We also interviewed Demi Lovato, which brings us to the subject of this post: her hot-pink lipstick. We swear, equally, that we’ve never seen this look good on anyone in real life. A junket is not exactly real life, but she is a real person, and it looked amazing. We want to try! And we want, apparently, to take our make-up cues from Disney Channel stars. Eh, it happens. Olive skin, dark eyes, dark hair, hot-pink lips. We wouldn’t have put it together.

This MAC shade above (Girl About Town, “fabulous fuchsia”) is the closest we’ve found to it. MAC lipstick, $14.50

Product: Buxom Big & Healthy Lip Stick

Cost: $18

What they say it does: “Buxom Big & Healthy Lip Stick works three full-time jobs—it defines the shape of lips like a liner, fills them in with creamy velvet color, and then plumps them to their full buxom potential. It’s a three-in-one lipstick that’s quick and convenient for defined, colorful, buxom lips anytime, anywhere.”

Our review: We stopped buying lipstick a long time ago, because: We put on lipstick. We go outside. We drink Diet Coke. We have no more lipstick, but that weird, sad remnant of lipstick. We know we are in the minority on this, but we are too thirsty and impatient for lip make-up we can’t reapply without a mirror. So: Benetint!

This is one of the few products we’ve ever encountered that survives the Diet Coke test. It does! It stayed on, without looking … let’s say, “weathered.” It is, as promised, quite creamy and easy to handle on the application, and the color stayed nice and deep, with a matte-ish look without being drying. We’re not sure how the tingling effect works—we assume it’s the “Buxom” effect—and we couldn’t necessarily detect a visible difference in the fullness of our lips. However: We really do not advocate standards of beauty that do not allow for both full and not-full lips (Nip/Tuck viewers will remember “thin, villainous lips”). Just because Angelina Jolie appears to advocate a position should not render it law. Thus, the fullness part of Buxom’s promise to consumers was, for us, not an issue—but we were happy to see the deep, lasting color, which ably survived our human need for liquids.

In short: Pro! But it’s reminded us that in the eternal war between strong lips//soft eyes and soft lips//strong eyes, we must always go with the latter.

Our grade: A

Generally we are against oily things. We want to extend that to include some sort of anti-BP rhetoric, but that’s nothing anyone hasn’t heard already, so we will restrict ourselves to oily skincare products: We are, generally, equally anti. This is our one exception: Bobbi Brown’s Beach Body Oil. We don’t know how they came up with the fragrance, but it’s literally—literally!—the smell on your skin after you spent the whole day at the beach, and your sunscreen’s sort of mixed with salt in the water, and there’s this crazy alchemy and it smells awesome. This is more or less exactly that smell.

The BB Beach fragrance, which is similar, says that it has the fragrance of “a lightly intoxicating blend of sand jasmine, sea spray, and mandarin.” This seems impossible to us: How could it be possible that anything could smell like sea spray? It’s like smelling like hope, or a bad day. And yet it is so. This smells pretty much the same, and in the oil formulation, stays on the skin for ages. Our number one irritation with fragrance is that you walk out the store (er, because you tried it on at Sephora, rather than purchase it) and five minutes later it’s completely gone. Not so, Bobbi Brown Beach Body Oil: We kept smelling our upper arm on the 90-minute drive from IKEA to Brooklyn this weekend (that’s 15 miles in 90 minutes, for the record) and it stayed strong.

Also, it makes your skin shiny. This, we realize, could be a plus or a minus, but we’re going with the former, at least for summer. Love. Bobbi Brown Beach Body Oil, $28

See all of our official BS Hearts items here.

Product: Fresh Sugar Plum Tinted Lip Treatment

Cost: $22.50

What they say it does: “Fresh Sugar Plum Tinted Lip Treatment SPF 15 offers sheer coverage or buildable color and is the perfect partner to the best-selling Sugar Lip Treatment SPF 15. It’s formulated with sugar, a natural humectant that prevents moisture loss, and a superior blend of nourishing oils and protective waxes to soften and smooth dry lips.”

Our review: We’ve been hearing loads about this, as a possible alternative to, say, Benetint or … we don’t know, any of several million other lip glosses at Sephora. We’ll give it this: It bills itself as a “lip treatment,” and it did feel like something other than a lip gloss or stain. (We love Benetint, but it can feel a bit thin, whether in stain or lip balm—just like Korres’s lip butters, which are great, but slide off almost immediately.) This was super, surprisingly heavy—goopy, even. But we found it sat on our lips rather than really moisturizing. Which was a little unappealing. We liked the colors more in theory than on our face, too. Altogether, a little disappointing, and certainly not a replacement for any of the products we mentioned above (Korres Lip Butter, Benetint) that we still prefer.

In short: We’ll stick with what we know.

Our grade: B-

We’re so desperate for Reader Mail that we had to steal one from the comments area, from last week’s celebration of all things Korres.

Do you like the Korres primer better than Smashbox photofinish primer? I’m trying to decide which one to buy.

Unbelievably, we have a wealth of information available regarding this question—because primer is our favorite beauty product, and we own both of these, one Smashbox and the Korres as well. We also have an answer: They are quite different. The Korres feels to us more like a moisturizer, while the Smashbox formulation—at least our bottle of it—is quite dry. (It’s so dry that we’ve actually wondered if our bottle would have failed quality control.) What this means is that the Korres feels really nice going on, but the Smashbox looks like it more successfully evens our skin tone and minimizes pore size.

That said, we still go with the Korres. All Korres products are free of parabens and a grocery list of other synthetic things—Smashbox isn’t, as far as the website reports. We’ll say this: Under make-up, maybe we’d go with Smashbox, since it makes things all nice and even. As a one-step moisturizer/foundation/everything, Korres is our choice.

Smashbox Photo-Finish Color Correcting Primer, $38

Korres Face Primer, $28

We went to our first yoga class in six months on Tuesday, and we can safely say that (a) it destroyed us and (b) we were happy to be there, even if the teacher kept saying “ex” instead of “exhale,” which drove us bananas, and (c) everyone in our class (well, the two women on the mats next to us) was wearing this nail polish—which we believe is from the American Apparel downstairs.

This is another of those products that came out while we were somewhere without Internet access. We’re catching up. Also: What’s up with the font? Ew. Anyway: AA nail polish, $6

We love this song so much it’s ridiculous, and we love the video slightly more. We first heard Marina and the Diamonds last year—February 25, 2009, thank you very much Gmail search function—when we were working very late at the NYLON office, and our very nice editor sent it to us to cheer us up because we’d gone all the way to Rite Aid and forgotten to buy snacks. It was successful. (The cheering-up operation.) That song was not the one above: It was “Obsessions (Golden Panda Remix.” But then we saw this one, and we fell in love all over again—apparently, in both music and other things, we are quite fickle.

Here are some screenshots from the song. We put in a call with the video people to see if we could interview the stylist—wish us luck!

Seeing this makes us think of the new “net-zero climate impact” hairspray from Aveda.

This makes us think of this bright pink lipstick (specifically: Fluorescent Orange Pink from Makeup Forever.)

And this makes us think of bright red lipstick (like NARS’ Jungle Red, a semi-matte red.)

This makes us think about having a wind machine follow us everywhere we go.

This makes us think about vintage shopping until we find exactly this pink dress.

Product: Clinique’s famous Black Honey, now in Superbalm Moisturizing Gloss

Cost: $14

What they say it does: “Lip balm with a colourful twist. Luscious, high-gloss shades treat your most undermoisturized skin to soothing shine. Instantly relieve dryness, protect with antioxidants and more.”

Our review: This is one of those big products that came out while we were wandering the desert (read: India, Nepal, and Laos) last year, so we were shocked to see it, in that way we were shocked when someone told us that Adam Lambert lost American Idol. Anyway: love! We never entirely understood why Black Honey was such an icon—it’s no Benetint, if you will—but we get it’s one of those colors that more or less works on everyone. (Though this is amazing in the macro sense, we’re not sure why this makes it a must-have in the micro—like, why would we like a product more because our friend Katie can also wear it? No?) Anyway: the fact is that we are part of “everybody,” so it more or less works on us, too, and Clinique knows how to formulate a lip gloss—unlike stupid Aveda, but we’ll get there next week.

In short: A strong recommendation. We churlishly took off a grade because we don’t like the hype.

Our grade: A-