The Last Lip Gloss Brand I May Ever Need

I'm only exaggerating a little bit. Really, I'm currently quite infatuated with NYX mega shine lip glosses. So much so that I've purchased five of them in the past six weeks. And at $2.60 a pop at a local beauty supply store, they're especially easy on the wallet as far as beauty products go!


Pretty, huh? Vanessa at Nessasary Makeup - whose reviews and tutorials I absolutely love - recently had a post with her NYX "lipstick army"...and while I'm not quite there yet, I'm quickly becoming a convert.

These are glosses, not lipsticks, so don't expect a heavy, lipstick-quality color. The lighter colors are more sheer, particularly 'Juicy Red,' the most translucent in the tube of the bunch. Since I haven't yet mastered the art of taking pictures of my lips, check out the below photo and I will verbally explain how they look on my lips.

From left to right:
Sunrise is a bright, opaque, shimmery, berry color that's less red than it looks in the tube.
Juicy Red makes my lips look exactly as tasty as it sounds. It deposits just a hint of color and a lot of shine.
Salsa is also bright, berry, shimmery and fairly opaque, but lighter than sunrise and less intense. It's a true, bold pink that feels very tropical to me, if that makes sense.
La~La~ is probably my favorite color. It deposits just the right amount of light, rosy, bubble gum pink on my lips, subtly perking up my complexion. (Side note: You can't see it in the photo, but Juicy Red isn't sparkly at all, Sunrise and Salsa are shimmery, and La~La~ and Perfect have bigger sparkle particles in them.)
Perfect is sooo pretty. It puts a very muted pink glaze on my lips with tiny sparkles, only apparent from up close.

Overall product pros:

• Wide range of colors.
• Fantastic texture; this is some of my all-time favorite textured lip glosses. I find slight variances based on color - for example, between the glosses with shimmer, with sparkle and those without it. Yet across the board I find these glosses to be smooth and provide ample coverage without being too sticky or gloopy.
  
• No taste and no odor (unless you sniff it really close).
• Great alone or over lipstick.
• Not too sparkly. The shimmer works as a light reflector and is subtle.
  
• Great price.

Cons:

• Not widely available depending on where you are. (I got mine at an independent beauty supply...I've seen NYX in some drug stores, but never these lip glosses.)
• Relatively long-lasting but nothing special when challenged with food or drinking.

What I especially love is the quality. I haven't used many high-end lip glosses so I can't compare these NYX glosses to them. However, I am very experienced when it comes to drugstore brands, from Revlon, Covergirl, L'Oreal and Maybelline to Wet 'n Wild, NYC and Bonne Bell (in my younger days) -- and in my opinion, these NYX glosses match or beat all of them. Plus, they're cheaper?? Count me in. (FYI, online the glosses are $5 on NYX's Web site, but I'd still pay that much for them, definitely.) I feel like I'm not sacrificing quality for cost, that it's fun and easy to experiment with different shades, and that I don't have to break the bank to treat myself once in a while.