Hey Sweeties,

Despite being Blogmas, it’s also Tuesday which means I cannot not honour Beauty Review Tuesday can I?!

When I was last up in London last month at Elle Magazine HQ to celebrate Estee Lauder’s new Modern Muse Chic fragrance, before heading home I had a quick mooch along Oxford Street. Intending initially to just head to the beauty halls in Selfridges and Debenhams, I actually stumbled upon a Kiko store which I hadn’t noticed before and I’ll be honest, I went a bit lip liner crazy.

This is a totally new brand to me but because I have heard good things about Kiko, I felt I could be confident in buying several products rather than just one or two to try before later returning for more (because you know I would have done!). In all, I came out of the store with 5 lip pencils -2 of these of the Precision kind- and 1 lipstick. At the moment in my beauty collection as well as my look, I feel lips are the area that I want to spend some time on perfecting.

I think the main thing to emphasise here with the Kiko brand is how reasonably priced (dare I say, cheap?) it is! Good quality lip liners for £1.90-2.90? yes please! My total bill at the end of my little splurge was a very purse friendly £19.40!

The lip pencils/liners:

These are great! Great for pigment, great for durability and great at doing what they were designed for… they really are just great! The Precision liners (310 & 300) only differ really in that they have a much pointier nib (for a preciser application) but at this moment I don’t feel they necessarily have a better quality pencil than the other normal liners. Saying that, on the blunter pencils, as you line your lips with the product you really can feel their creaminess and if you prefer to fill in your lips with liner before applying a lipstick over the top, these work fantastically for that also. For me, I love wearing a bold lip when I can and  of course a liner is essential for a defined pout but while I am still getting used to some lipstick formulas and testing their staying power, particularly when out eating and drinking, one of my makeup nightmares is having slightly washed off lipstick but still a heavily lined mouth. So for me, where possible I do fill in some if not all of my lips with liner as well as lipstick… just for that security.

 

The lipstick:

This wasn’t a planned purchase (not that the lip liners were of course when I left home that day), but it was out on display and caught my eye as I was making my way to the till point so of course I stopped to check it out further. I fell in love with the colour which is I guess is quite like a coral shade so it’s both peachy and pink; it’ll be great for the summer months.

The lipstick -Ace of Diamond in no.32- is an incredibly creamy formula, I would almost go as far to say it’s more like a lip butter than it is a lipstick just owing to the texture and feel on the lips once applied. I want to describe it as a buttery matte as it’s matte in appearance but you want to be constantly smoothing the product between your lips as you would with a balm (or a butter) until it settles and dries in place.

Because the product isn’t pointed, you don’t get precision application as you would with a lipstick which is why actually, in this case, it works brilliantly with a lip liner, particularly no. 702 as seen above. I also expected this product to slide off almost as soon as food or drink passes across it but surprisingly, it stays put really well and even if for the most part when it does go, it leaves behind a wonderful stain which for me, is kind of what you want.

I would definitely be encouraged to purchase and try more from this brand in the future.

 

Until tomorrow x