Get your lips round this one! (Max Factor Lipfinity)

Member Name: offy

Product:	Max Factor Lipfinity
Date:	11/07/03 (521 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Long lasting colour, lots of shades

Disadvantages: Very drying on the lips, expensive

I seem to go through phases with make-up. In my late teens I wouldn?t be seen dead without half of the contents of the Boots make-up counter plastered over my face (I did have the excuse of being a New Romantic/goth). In my twenties, I decided I looked younger without make-up, so I completely stopped wearing it. However, when I hit my thirties, I started needing it!

In order to stop my eyes looking like pee holes in the snow, I started wearing eye make-up, but this looked funny without any lipstick. So began the quest for a lipstick that lasted more than 3 minutes. I used to wear Rimmel lipstick, but this not only dried my lips out, but also didn?t last long. I tried the extortionate Estee Lauder lipstick, but it wore off as quickly as I was wasting my money on it. Christian Dior was much better, but still wouldn?t last past my first morning drink at work. I then read about the amazing Lipfinity by Max Factor which promised to stay on all day. Was it too good to be true?

Claiming to be a semi-permanent cosmetic, Lipfinity is actually in two parts ? the lip paint and the moisturising top coat. It can be recognised by its unusual (for a lipstick) 5 inch gold box. The shade is clearly displayed on the top of the box, but I have found them to be a bit darker in use than on the box, so try them out on your hand or wrist first. Do not try them on your lips as they do not come off easily and you will end up with a rainbow of shades over your smackers. Depending on where you buy them from you can find up to about 15 shades, but only a few are light colours. Many are definitely for evening wear. Lipfinity is available from most high street chemists such as Boots and Superdrug.

I bought a shade called Delicious Delicieuse (170) which looked like a dusky pink colour and I paid £9.99. When you open the box you will find two 4.5 inch tubes that look similar to mascara. The lip paint has a long gold top and shows the colour of the lipstick in the botto
m 1.5 inches. It has an applicator with a hard foam end and contains 2.3 ml of paint. The top coat tube is white with a gold band, which you twist to reveal the contents. It contains 1.9g of product.

Apparently this ?revolutionary? lip paint contains something called PermaTonea ?a breakthrough ingredient complex which provides semi-permanent colour by gently attaching colour pigments to the lips in a flexible mesh effect?. The moisturising top coat then ?ensures the Lipfinity system delivers the fresh, dewy finish we all want from a lip colour and not the dry, matte appearance of some long-lasting lipsticks?.

So how did I get on and did it really last all day? The instructions say to ?apply a thin, even layer of paint? to clean lips. This was my first problem. I found that the wand delivered the paint quite unevenly, so I had to do it a few times and the covering probably wasn?t as thin as it should have been. You then have to wait at least 60 seconds for it to dry. It is very sticky at first, but I felt it was ready for the next coat after about 2 minutes. Trouble was I had managed to coat my two crowned front teeth too ? help! Panicking about the ?semi-permanency? of the lip paint, I hurriedly scraped my teeth and was pleased that after a bit of effort I managed to remove the staining.

My lips were darker than the shade on the box hinted at, but still looked good, if very unshiny. The moisturising top coat looks like a stick of white wax and feels a bit like Vaseline. It glides on the lips and immediately made a huge difference to the look. Suddenly my lips looked all glossy, full and pouting. This was more like it! Off I went to work. I had a cup of tea mid morning and lunch (including drink and pudding). I had another two drinks in the afternoon and by 4.00 went to inspect my lips. The colour was still there! However, my lips were looking and feeling very dry and flaky. When I read the instructions again, I realised that I should have
applied the moisturising top coat frequently throughout the day. Now, call me dumb, but I thought the point of long lasting lipstick was that you didn?t have to reapply anything during the day. If I have to reapply top coat, I may as well apply lipstick! As the top coat tube is double the length of a normal lipstick, I also found it a pain to carry round in my bag and the lid fell off quite easily.

Removing it can be a pain, as it will not come off by just rinsing with water. You can either use an oil based make-up remover, Johnson?s baby oil, exfoliate your lips, or be lazy and sleep in it. In the interests of consumer research (and not, of course, utter laziness), I tried the latter, and found that you could barely see any colour by the morning, and my pillow was not covered in lipstick. However, my lips were even more dry by the morning, so it is not recommended.

As I get older I am starting to get small lip lines, and I find this lipstick highlights these due to its drying effect. I therefore believe that this lipstick might be better for younger lips. It also dries unevenly into the cracks of your lips if you do not keep them still and stretched after application. The colour certainly lasts all day, but not the overall effect, which you need to top up as often as you would do a lipstick and I can?t be bothered to do either. I therefore only wear this lipstick on the occasional evening outing, more often than not if I am going for a meal, as I know I will at least have some colour left, even if I have no gloss left. I then have to spend the next day topping up with Vaseline to prevent my lips from looking like a dried out river bed.

For more information on this product go to www.lipfinity.com Lipfinity is made by Proctor & Gamble. To sum up:

?? Advantages ??
? The colour really does last all day
? Great to wear for an evening meal
? The moisturising top coat gives a wonderful finish
? A wide range of shades
>? Lasts well as you only use the paint once a day

?? Disadvantages ??
? It is expensive
? It dehydrates your lips - badly!
? Can be hard to remove
? Will stain clothing if you catch it before it is dry
? You still have to reapply the top coat
? Highlights lip lines and cracks
? Bigger than a lipstick to carry round

Summary: