Lancome Parisian Lips Le Stylo

Lancome's launched its beautiful Spring 2017 Absolutely Rose collection, which centers around delicate rose pink tones. First off, the pale rose-gold and pearl-pink packaging is absolutely gorgeous, but today I'm focusing first on three of the four available Parisian Lips Le Stylo duos.

These are double-ended lip bars (SGD$36) which are designed to give a subtle ombre lip effect, with a matte twist. Instead of simply working with two colors, the two shades you get aren't that far apart in tone. They are, however, very far apart in texture. 

On one end you get a sheer tinted cream which is very much like a tinted balm stick. It adds a slight gloss to the lips and very faint color.

Parisian Lips Le Stylo sheer cream end

On the other end, you get a sponge tip dunked in a pressed powder pigment, which gives you a complementary matte tint.

Parisian Lips Le Stylo powder end

I find these aren't really meant to be worn alone because the balm end doesn't give much visible color, and the powder end needs something creamy to stick to; otherwise you don't get much payoff. Together though, you get a lovely soft velvety matte tint, and the option to control whether you want it all one uniform shade, or if you want to concentrate the color in the center of your lips. 

Parisian Lips Le Stylo No. 03 swatch comparison

As far as application goes, it was straight-forward enough. You apply the creamy balm end over your entire lip, then press the powder tip around the center of your lips. Press your lips together a bit and you're good to go. The colors are also beautiful; I tested 3 of the 4 available shades and I like all of them, although my favorite is probably 01, a slightly warmer bright peony pink. I had expected 03, the palest baby pink shade, to look a bit crazy on me, but it actually turned out quite flattering and wearable.

The texture also stayed super comfy on the lips - it wasn't dry or icky feeling as you might expect with a matte texture. Probably because of how conditioning the cream end is. Lasting power is just average for a normal semi-sheer lipstick, which is to be expected. The balm won't stay on long if you eat, kiss or drink, but the powder on top does help it stay a bit better so it all averages out.

On the negative side, I did find myself wishing the creamy balm end was a little "fatter" because it does take awhile to cover your whole lip with the slim rounded crayon tip. And the other issue was having to re-dip the sponge tip back into the powder after pressing it into a balmy cream. After just a couple of uses, the powder is pretty much "contaminated". Doesn't affect the color, but I'll have to use it longer to see if it screws with how "matte" the powder looks after you've introduced so much cream into it.