Tangerine Matte Lipstick by MAKE

Disclaimer:  I purchased this.

I bought quite a few products from MAKE recently, my first foray into this brand.  If you're not familiar with MAKE, it's the first for-benefit brand of the We See Beauty Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to incubate and accelerate women-led, worker-owned cooperatives to drive large scale change.

What does that mean, exactly?  Well, the long version is here, but one aspect is that 1/3 of online sales from the We See Beauty site are donated to the foundation

"to accelerate a movement that believes through shared ownership, we can establish a more equitable and beautiful society for all."

I purchased mine from Barneys New York, and on there it says 10% goes to the foundation, good to know for future purchases.  So essentially, reinvesting in communities and people who are creating positive change.  I like that concept, plus I've seen some good reviews of the makeup!

Since I've been searching for the right orange matte lip shade for me, one of my choices was the Tangerine matte lipstick ($25).  I second guessed myself a bit when I first opened the tube, wondering would I be able to pull off this color.  According to Joey Maalouf in How to Pull Off Orange Lipstick Like a Pro  "For medium skintone, try an apricot hue. For fair skin, I prefer a tomato-colored orange. For dark skin, tangerine."  Hmmm well, let's see if I picked the right color.

The pigmentation is very good, and I like the angular shape of the lipstick, as it makes it quite easy to apply straight from the tube for opaque coverage.  I applied over exfoliated lips and on top of MAKE's lip primer, another product I picked up to hopefully help with lip line settling issues.  I'll review once I test it a bit more.

The color is actually tamer on than I was expecting from the swatch, no doubt tempered by my own lip color.  Worn over the primer, I found it quite comfortable and with a wear of about 4 hours.  The matte lipstick formula features squalane, candelilla wax, vitamin A and sunflower seed oil, so it may be comfortable on it's own as well.  It did not survive a meal, but my lips were starting to feel like they needed some hydration by that point anyhow.

Here I applied using a lip brush, which gave a lighter coating of color for a slightly more subdued look.  That's the one I was more comfortable with, as I'm still a bit shy about wearing bold lips to work.  Which is where I'm at the majority of the time I'm wearing makeup :-) 

I'm happy with Tangerine and glad I took a chance on it! I think it will successfully take me through the warm weather months, and I can now go on my next elusive color/product search.