Carousel Glosses have been a great success and are *almost sold out*. These are Holiday Edition and will be discontinued on March 1 or when we run out, whichever happens first. Wondering if they’re worth picking up? Read review below & check out the swatches!

makeupbox:

Lip Gloss for the Lipstick Girl?

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[Carousel Glosses: (L-to-R) Loop-de-Loop, Kaleidoscope, Candy Apple, Cherry on Top, and Golden Ticket]

I used to be a gloss lover before I got into blogging. I loved it for the same reason most girls love lip glosses. The versatility and low maintenance, and how it juices up your pout with subtle color and shimmer.

Well, there-in lies the problem which I discovered the MOMENT I tried to do lip swatches for a blog post. In stronger lighting and zoom, half of them looked like a smattering of barely-there shimmer over clear gloss. The difference was quite minimal, and I finally understood why “signature lip colors” are mostly lipsticks. In real life, with most of the generic shades around, nobody else can really tell one pink gloss from the other on your lips (or a peach one to tell the truth). 

So in the past year, I’ve pretty much stopped using colored glosses on their own.

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[Lime Crime Carousel Gloss, boxed. Reminds me of European chocolate pastilles!]

When I first heard that Lime Crime was coming up with a line of limited edition sparkly glosses in zany colors, I thought “Nah. They’re probably like MAC Dazzleglasses.”

Dear all, I was so wrong. 

[Carousel Lip Gloss swatches: (L-to-R) Loop-de-Loop, Kaleidoscope, Candy Apple, Cherry on Top, and Golden Ticket]

I tried to capture the sheen, intensity, opacity and texture of the glosses as best as I could here. And yes, honey, they do go on that strong.

The closer comparison would probably be to MAC’s Dare to Wear Lipglasses from 2010 in more outlandish shades, but I don’t own any of those so I can’t really compare.

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General ease of use:

This is not the type of lip gloss you smear on half-drunk in a club toilet with shaky hands and no mirror. They come with smaller, firmer, short-bristle brushes as you need a lot of precision as ANY slips and smears will show up against your skin.

I was disappointed that 2 of the 5 brush applicators came “splayed” when brush hairs were pushed up the wrong way during the packing process. (As you know, those stragglers are impossible to bend back into shape, so I ended up using cuticle scissors to cut off the renegade strands, and they work fine now.) Would prefer maybe a flexible silicone spatula if the brushes can’t go in properly, but that’s just me! If you need more control than the small brush gives, just apply a lot of gloss in the center of you lips and then spread and smooth it out with your own lip brush.

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Texture:

These glosses are very thick, which is probably necessary if you want to combine high sheen and high pigmentation. In fact, they’re more like liquid lipsticks than real glosses. You’ll have to be your own judge whether these are “sticky” though, since the term is so subjective and different for everyone. I find them less sticky than MAC Clear Lipglass or Dazzleglasses, but definitely thicker than the runnier Cremesheen Glasses.

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Now the fun part: How do these look on the lips?

Lip swatch: Single coat of Loop-de-Loop worn over bare lips.

The dark horse for me was Loop-de-Loop. I figured there was no way blue lip gloss could look good on me but this deep, metallic royal-blue shade has turned out to be surprisingly charming and flattering on my yellow-based skin. But then this is totally not a color I would normally wear at all. No staining experienced.

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Lip swatch: Single coat of Golden Ticket over bare lips.

As expected, Golden Ticket is one of the most fun and interesting shades in the collection. It actually goes on a deeper than it appears in the tube, as it’s a warm bronze base with a yellow-gold sheen, rather than a pure gold. Like Loop-de-Loop, it’s pretty but extremely outlandish compared to normal lip colors. No staining experienced.

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Lip swatch: Single coat of Kaleidoscope worn over bare lips.

If I had to, I’d say this is probably my least favorite of the Carousel glosses. It’s not a bad shade at all, but it takes a bit more work than the other 4 shades as the color goes on a little less evenly and areas of your lips will look more plum, and others more violet. But that’s really being critical, as you can get around that simply by wearing a deep purple or plum liner beneath, to get a gorgeous deep purple shade. No staining experienced.

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Lip swatch: Single coat of Cherry on Top worn over bare lips, with flash.

Bright fuchsia-red without any metallic pigments, so it’s more of a dense, hot-pink, jelly base with micro-flecks shot through. This is definitely warm-toned, and looks like a maraschino cherry color when worn on the lips. I initially thought I’d like Candy Apple the best, but Cherry on Top has turned out to be much more wearable for day time, and I’ve been giving it a bit of love.

Try if you don’t want to wear a straight red, but don’t like pinks! Stains lips pink.

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Lip swatch: Single coat of Candy Apple on top of bare lips

I’ll probably have to do a separate post on this particular one because the camera is just not doing it justice! This is a rich red-on-red-on-red gloss with plenty of sparkle which is just not showing up here. Think of Dorothy’s shoes in Wizard of Oz. It’s extremely flattering to wear but much more dramatic-looking in real life. Stains lips a deep pink/red.

To get the effect in Lime Crime’s promotional images though, you will probably need to layer this over a deep red lipstick or liner as it does not go on that dark over pink/beige lips.

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Carousel Glosses are available until end of February at Limecrimemakeup.com.