Just ask the Tin Man: High shine is the name of the metallic makeup game. Finding a happy medium between straight-up chrome and a glossy finish, however, can be tricky when it comes to lipstick — which is exactly why Ciaté London's latest innovation is so brilliant. (And we mean that quite literally.)
It's as if the brand couldn't pick between finishes when creating its Glitter Flip liquid lipsticks, so it didn't — and instead settled on a trippy formula that transforms from matte to metallic to glitter with just a few lip smacks. It's equal parts rock 'n' roll and glamour girl with just as much edge of a David Bowie album cover and subtlety of Tinkerbell's pixie dust.
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How the product works is simple: Just swipe an even layer of the matte pigment onto lips (it already has hints of shimmer straight from the tube), and let the formula dry for a minute or so. Then press your lips together to "activate" the kind of sparkle you'd get from a glitter bomb, and watch as mirror-like flashes of light dance across your mouth like magic.
When the product landed on our desks this morning, we needed to try it to believe it. Not only did the colours — we tested Iconic (a near-goth blue-purple) and Fortune (a bold amethyst), which you can see below — go on darkly pigmented at first, but it only took one press of our lips to turn each hue into a brighter, glimmering, and infinitely more fun version of itself.
While we only received a select few to try, there will be seven colours total in Ciaté's Glitter Flip collection, which hits US store Sephora on 15th August: Candy, a mauve-ish pink; Siren, a bright turquoise; Infamous, a rose gold; Hollywood, a classic red; and Forbidden, a deep fuchsia. The lipsticks hit Sephora shelves on 15th August for $19 a piece.
Like all good things, however, this launch comes with a catch: The formula (like many of its liquid lipstick counterparts) isn't exactly comfortable to wear. It may have stayed on through two cups of coffee and lunch, but it left our lips drier than a cracker. Then again, Cleopatra gave zero fucks that her gilded lipstick was made out of malachite paste, so long as it made history. We have a feeling this formula will, too.