Review: Yves Saint Laurent Vernis a Levres Rebel Nudes #103, Pink Taboo

Yves St. Laurent Rebel Nudes Glossy Stain #103 Pink Taboo, courtesy of Nordstrom

Wow, I've really gotten crabby in my recent reviews. It's probably because I feel guilty for having accumulated such an embarrassment of samples. I am, after all, descended from the religious fanatics who settled New England in the 17th century. Guilt? Shame? Burning witches at the stake? It's what I do. 

At any rate, Internet, I'm delighted to inform you that I actually liked this product.

There have been a whole lot of innovations in lipstick formulations over the past few years. Then there are the lip stains. The lip stains-in-oils. The liquid matte lipsticks. I can't keep up.

Then has been the ridiculous jump in the prices of lipstick, with Tom Ford ($52) and Guerlain's Rouge G ($54) leading the pack. Even Estée Lauder is quietly phasing out their All-Day lipstick line ($20) and replacing it with the Pure Color Envy line ($30).

So thank goodness Yves St. Laurent forced these samples into my hands. Otherwise I'd still be using my old-fashioned boring old creamy opaque lipstick packaged in tubes. GOD.

This product applies like a lip gloss, looks like a lip gloss, but wears like a long-wear liquid lipstick.

According to Sephora:

This glossy Stain captures the shine of a gloss, color of a lipstick, and the long wear of a stain. Rebel Nudes is the first to premiere Euphoric Pearl technology for an all-day 3D luminous effect. 

This is upon first applying this afternoon

Yves Saint Laurent Glossy Stain #103 at 4:00 p.m. by daylight. It's euphoric! And pearly!

This is three and a half hours later, after dinner and wine drinking

the same shade at 7:30 p.m., by artificial light ... still there, maybe not so delighted with itself

It looks like it's migrating a bit, but only a little bit. And it's still there, after eating dinner. Amazing.

This stuff applies with a sponge-tipped applicator. The sample applicator was a little awkward to use, but I managed to get the hang of it. You apply it as evenly as you can—I think I did OK, but the color I picked to test is pretty forgiving, anyway—then let it set for a minute or two. It feels light on the lips, but has a creamy-to-glossy texture and a shiny finish. 

It feels very moisturizing for a couple of hours, but then I start feeling little indications of irritation? Dryness? I'm not sure, but I added some Aquaphor on top. So it's not perfect.

But speaking of wine—when my husband and I brought our dinner dishes into the kitchen, I couldn't tell whose wineglass was whose. Even though it feels moisturizing and even a bit greasy, this leaves almost nothing on the rim of a wineglass. .

On top of that, it doesn't cost $50. OK, it costs $35 USD for 0.2 oz. It's not cheap. And that's a small amount of product. But then, you wouldn't be reapplying every hour, so there's that.

Verdict: I was totally ready to buy this, and had added it to my Nordstrom shopping bag—but then I noticed that if I bought it, they'd give me a bag of samples. WHICH I DO NOT NEED.

The good news is that this isn't a limited edition, so maybe I can find a terribly cruel wicked stepmother of a store that won't shower me with free shit.