Product Review
Color Jolt Matte
by Maybelline

MAYBELLINE PHILIPPINES recently announced the entry of its newest lip line: the Color Jolt Matte — a curious product which promises “3x more pigment… to get intense lip color in just a New York minute,” according to a company press release.

Now, the New York-based drugstore makeup brand already has quite an extensive lip line, from the newer Powder Mattes and the Loaded Bolds to the older Color Show lip colors, but it seems that Maybelline is bent on serving all kinds of markets which is why it introduced this hyper-pigmented lip stain — yet matte — hybrid.

Coming in eight colors from “Don’t Pink with Me” (an intense, almost neon, pink), to a token nude/brown shade called “Show Off Nude,” to a deep red named “Vamp Red,” a single 5-ml tube will set you back P299.

BusinessWorld was given all the eight shades to try out and this writer has been testing them out for two weeks and the verdict is — well honestly, I’m not that impressed.

First things first though, they weren’t joking when they said this product is packed with pigment. A small, almost pinhead amount of product is enough to almost entirely cover my lower lip, but what they don’t tell you is it can be patchy — especially the nude/brown shade which I only used once and never again because it was really patchy (and the color not flatter my fair skin).

For a product whose main selling point is the pigment which would ideally not require a second swipe, it needed another to even out the color.

The felt tip applicator is a nice touch because it almost made me like the squeeze tube design, which I have never been fond of. The applicator is soft and adequately applies lip product without much difficulty.

For those who have trouble with the doe-foot applicators which come with most liquid lipsticks, this might actually be a good starter product — it feels similar and one will benefit from it being a lot shorter than other applicators.

Texture-wise, the product glides on smoothly like butter (though the product itself looks like latex or oil paint), reminiscent of the popular Nyx Soft Matte Lip Cream, and it does dry down semi-matte (not completely matte) after a few minutes of letting it set.

And like the aforementioned product, it does not dry out your lips and it does feel weightless — but do remember to prep your lips beforehand (exfoliate and moisturize).

Now, for P299 you don’t get a lot of product — just a measly 5-ml tube. While I do get the point that the hyper pigmented formula means that one uses less product, I [would] still feel cheated (if I actually had paid for these) if I was given this tiny tube.

Next, the color range isn’t very nice. There is an orange, a neon pink, a neon purple, a darker neon pink/purple, another pinkish red, a deep red, and a nude. Let’s hope if ever this product clicks that they expand the color range to something beyond neon.

Still on neon pinks, especially “Don’t Pink with Me” — upon first application, this shade does not look too bad. It actually brightened up my face — which was a plus — but once it wore off (in about three hours) for some odd reason, the neon got neon-er. It does not fade or stain lightly, if anything, the colors get brighter.

A lot of the shades didn’t work for me: in fact, the only shade I did like was the Vamp Red which led me to the conclusion that this product is not for everyday use but for very occasional, “I want to be in the ’70s” kind of party look.

Maybelline, again, has an extensive line of lip products at the same price point, many of which — like the aforementioned Powder Mattes or the Creamy Mattes — behave better and offer more colors. I believe they would be the better choice. — Zsarlene B. Chua

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