As you may know, one of the hot new trends in beauty this fall is black lip gloss. I have been seeing this trend since the A/W runway shows in the spring and decided to hold off on establishing an opinion until I tried it myself. Of course everything looks innovative and fresh on the runway, but real life can be another store.
The 2 major purveyors of black lip gloss currently are YSL and Lancome. Lancome created a limited edition sparkly gloss that is only available in select locations- and they only released 450 tubes. Clearly, I was not going to get my hands on that.
I was able to track down a tube of the YSL black gloss at the Phipps Saks Fifth Avenue. I was assuming that something made for consumers would be more on the shear side, not as dramatic and opaque as what was sent down the runway. I was very mistaken.
It is black as night and almost totally opaque. The gloss has really more of lip lacquer feel to it as it is very sticky, like Mac's Lipglass or Napoleon Perdis's gloss. I was thinking it should be more of a balm texture, as that may help with blending. This really felt (and looked) like tar. It is almost completely solid in color. I can see how the black gloss may look good on top of a deep vamp red, as I had seen it in the YSL look book. I stand firm that changing the consistency could make this more versatile. I am happy that YLS did have the guts to put out something this different and didn't "water it down" for mass markets.
Sadly, I do not have the complexion for this trend- blond hair, fair skin and green eyes. I could see how someone with really dark hair and eyes may be able to pull this off. On me, I looked like an 8th grader trying to become Goth. Or someone who ate a blueberry pie and didn't have a napkin handy. Sadly (or rather good for me), I did not take a picture of this beauty experiment.
If you have embraced the trend, send me a pic- I applaud you!
I think Saks still has a few tubes left, but I would hurry (you can't order online- at least I couldn't find anyone who stocked it).
