Wet n Wild Perfect Pout Gel Liners: Bare to Comment and Gone Burgundy

Disclaimer: I purchased these.

I recently did a Wet n Wild haul and picked up two of their new Perfect Pout gel lip liners ($2.99). Formulated with a proprietary polymer and ester complex, these are supposed to give smooth, flawless, and lasting lip color.

Available in 6 shades, I chose the terracotta Bare to Comment and the wine Gone to Burgundy shades. These are a swivel up pencil that are rather delicate (as we shall see below), so I would not extend them too far when applying. You are getting a mere .008 ounces for your $2.99, which is not much at all. In comparison, Essence makes another bargain lip pencil ($1.99) that is a favorite of mine, and it contains .035 ounces, or a little over 4x's as much.

But on to performance: do these live up to their claims? Yes and no. They do glide on and are easy to apply, but I don't find them particularly long last. I also find that when I wear these as an all over lip color, my lips start to feel dry not long after applying. I see no hydrating ingredients in the formula, which explains that.

The second time I applied Bare to Comment as an all over lip color, it crumbled on me. Lo and behold, it's hollow inside, which better explains the .008 ounces. One thing I do not like about this is how, if you go outside your lip line, it looks diffuse as opposed to opaque. I think you can tell in the Bare Comment LOTD's below.

Bare to Comment

Bare  to Comment with Tarte's Energy 

Gone Burgundy

So, these are not without their flaws, but I like them enough that I will wear them. I won't purchase any others, as I really think the Essence lip liners are better in both formula and price.

Essence Soft Berry Lip Liner

I had a good experience with Essence's lip liner pencil in Wish Me a Rose, so I decided to try a few more.  Enter Soft Berry, a muted, warm leaning wine.

I like wearing lip liners topped with a little gloss as an easy but fairly long lasting lip color.  At about $1.50, these are definitely a good budget friendly option for both a liner and a lip color.  It's not hard to get smooth color that wears comfortably, no doubt aided by the coconut oil and Vitamin E in the formula.

There are 8 different shades available at Ulta, and while the range is fairly limited to neutral tones, reds, and a few pinks, I like the formula.  I hope they add some more diverse shades so I can indulge in a few more!

NYX Slim Lip Pencil in Pumpkin

October is probably my favorite month of the year for a variety of reasons.  It's when the weather starts to cool down here in Mobile and the humidity drops, leading to some beautiful days.  It's also my birthday month, when I take a week or two off from work to unwind and do much needed home and yard projects.

I can't think of a more appropriate color and name for this time of year than Pumpkin, and the NYX lip pencil of this moniker is very nice!  I like using lip pencils for all over lip color, and Pumpkin's deep orange with gold shimmer applied smoothly and wore comfortably for a good 4 hours, which is about tops for me.

Pumpkin has a slightly glossy finish, but here I'm wearing it mattified with MAKE's Matte Pencil.  Matte lips have definitely been my lip finish of choice recently, especially now that I've found a way to comfortably mattify my lipsticks.

NYX lip pencils are a very reasonable $3.49 and come in a variety of colors (I counted 36 shades on Ulta's site).  Very nice!

Wish Me a Rose Lip Liner by Essence

Disclaimer:  I purchased this.

While I rarely bother with using lip liners in the traditional sense of outlining my lips, I've recently discovered how great they can be as a base for other lip products.  Wish Me a Rose lip liner by Essence is a budget friendly item ($1.49) that doesn't skimp on quality, and the pretty pink color actually has me using it all on it's on as a lip color as well as under other products.  Well here, let me show you!

 

A warm leaning semi-matte medium pink, Wish Me a Rose is easy to use as an all over lip color.  I usually top it with a bit of gloss, but it's not uncomfortable all on it's own either. 

Below I'm wearing it topped with Tarina Tarantino's Sparklicity gloss Paiette, which is heavy on the sparkle, as the name would imply :-)

Available in the U.S. at select Walgreens, FredMeyers, H.E.B.,  Ulta stores and ulta.com,  I've been impressed with the few products from the German brand Essence I've tried thus far, and plan on trying out more.  I mean, come on now, $1.49?  That's hard to beat!