Most people in my life have probably never seen me without lipstick on. The only exception: those brief moments between eating and reapplying, or if they're lucky enough to catch me after my nighttime skin care routine. I wear it so much, in fact, that when I don't have a bold color glossed over my lips, my friends ask if I'm feeling OK. So I like to think I'm something of an expert. The sommelier of lippies, perhaps, with an encyclopedic knowledge of which formulas are drying, moisturizing, patchy, smooth, and creamy, and what's going to stay on through a meal and what'll wipe off as soon as you apply it.
And though I appreciate a lipstick that doesn't rub off as soon as I take a sip of tea or kiss my boyfriend, long-wear formulas have never been my thing. They're often drying or sticky and make my lips shrivel up and flake. I usually go for something creamier and more moussey than your average matte liquid lip. No, they don't stay on for eight hours, but they do the job. (And I've developed my own way of eating so as to avoid the lip smear as much as possible.)
So when I was snooping around the beauty closet for a new product to try, I didn't expect to like the Maybelline New York SuperStay Matte Ink. The color was what stood out. (Lover, below, is my favorite, but Voyager is a close second.) I'm a sucker for a rosy mauve shade.
SuperStay and Matte were the keywords that scared me. But Rachel our beauty writer told me it was good, so I caved. The color is super even and opaque—a make-or-break quality for me. It's easy to use the applicator to really define my lip line and the formula dries down without getting chalky. It doesn't even feel matte.
After a few more hours at work, I went to a bar with some friends and had a beer, ate dinner, washed my face (I'm a double cleanser, so that's an oil followed by a cream cleanser), and hopped in the shower. When I came out and went to finish my skin care routine, I noticed I still had my lipstick on. All of it. It wasn't faded or feathered at the edges. It wasn't patchy or flaky. It was still as fresh as when I'd applied it hours earlier. And despite my thorough cleansing steps, it hadn't budged. I thought, What is this black magic?!
I wiped it with some toner, and nothing changed. So I pulled out the big guns—Vaseline. I used to do heavy theater makeup when I was in musicals, and I'd use it to get everything off. So I slathered it on my lips and tissued it off. Most of the lipstick went away in the first pass and a little more Vaseline did the trick.
I couldn't believe it took so much to remove my lipstick. But damn. I was impressed. I wore it to the beach that weekend, and it lasted all day long.
Then the other day I tried the darker shade, Voyager, which is definitely more edgy and cool. The tough thing about dark lipsticks is that if they start to fade or smear, they can look really messy and it's hard to fix it without taking all of your lipstick off and starting from scratch. But this one never moved. A coworker told me how great my lipstick looked at the end of the day and I said, "Thanks, I haven't reapplied once all day." About six editors turned around to ask what in the world I was wearing.
In a world where almost every brand has a "long-wear" formula, it's amazing to see one that actually does what it says, and at the drugstore no less. The brand claims it'll last 18 hours, but I have a feeling it would stay much longer if I wanted it to. Sometimes I change my lipstick shade three or four times in a day, but in those moments when I don't want to fool around—I'm wearing this.
Maybelline New York SuperStay Matte Ink, $8, target.com
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