Review: Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Lipsticks

Every brand is starting to dip their toes into the liquid lipstick trend. Barry M do fantastic ones as do Stila, MUA and Nip and Fab. And now Rimmel have joined them with their recently released Stay Matte Liquid Lipsticks. They claim to be a high intensity, pigmented liquid lipstick that has a velvet finish and lasts for up to 12 hours whilst remaining comfortable to wear.

There are fourteen shades in the range starting with beautiful nude shades working through some gorgeous bolder shades and finishing with some slightly more eccentric but still stunning shades. The two shades I went for are Plum This Show and Fire Starter. Plum This Show is a deep plum shade that has more of a purple undertone than raspberry whilst Fire Starter is a bold red shade that is neither a blue toned red or a tomato red, sitting somewhere in the middle.

Now I'd love to tell you that both of these are highly pigmented, opaque in one swipe and comfortably long wearing. But I can't, I can only tell you this about one shade. Fire Starter is the shade to go for out of the two. It's opaque in one swipe, doesn't take a lot of work to get right and when it dries down, it's not budging. Like you can eat a greasy cheeseburger followed by a huge slab of fudge cake not moving. And I know because I've tried it. It does not budge and doesn't need reapplying either. It's an absolutely amazing shade, the doe foot applicator makes application a dream and you don't need to layer coats to get a highly pigmented matte finish that is totally comfortable even if you've been wearing it for a good few hours.

Plum This Show on the other hand is a disaster of a shade. What looks like a beautiful shade in the tube is a streaky unworkable disaster. It doesn't even swatch nicely. Now you may think I'm being harsh but it's the truth, I've tried so many different ways to get it to work and it just isn't. Under lip liner, on it's own, in thin layers, nothing works with this shade. And it's such a shame as it looks like it has the potential to be such a good shade. It would look absolutely stunning during the upcoming colder months if it just worked but it doesn't which is so disappointing.

Shades aside, these liquid lipsticks have the potential to be some of the best on the high street. Their velvet mousse feel makes them a lot more comfortable to wear than others' on the market and don't dry lips out. The doe foot applicator applies just enough product and has enough flexibility to it that it smoothly glides along the lips, leaving behind an opaque colour that dries down in seconds and doesn't budge. Compared to the Barry M, Loreal, MUA and Gosh liquid lipsticks these are the best for their price point. And at £5.99 a pop you can't complain. I definitely plan on picking up some more shades including the stunning bold pink called Heartbeat.