I have a bit of a backlog of lipglosses to post about on my blog as gloss is one of my favourite make-up products and one of the first products I pick when I just feel like a Friday night quick make-up treat after work so I’m forever buying new ones.
Last week on just such a Friday I picked up one of the new Smile Enhancing Glosses by Bourjois. It’s a bit of a stupid name for a lipgloss because surely all glosses are meant to be smile enhancing?? That is why we buy them after all, to improve how we think our lips/smile look. A better name would have been “Tooth Brightening Gloss” because that is the major claim of this product. Anyway, I got it on an introductory offer in Superdrug but the normal price is £8.99, which I think is a little on the steep side for a high street brand lipgloss. I decided to go for a bright ‘n’ cheerful raspberry colour which is shade 05 Framboise Hollywood.
Mine came packaged in a plastic box which is perhaps designed to make the product seem more expensive but I mean, even more packaging in these days of environmental concern?? It’s just not necessary! I actually keep my lipgloss in the box just to feel like I’m getting some use out of it!!
As you can see from the illustrations on the back of the package this is a two step gloss with a clear gel designed for use directly on the teeth plus a normal coloured lipgloss. They are supposed to contain special blue “brightening” particles which are supposed to have a “tooth brightening” effect. The blue particles can actually be seen a bit in the swatches that I did on my arm.
The tooth brightening gel has a mild minty flavour but to be honest I couldn’t really see any difference in the brightness of my teeth when I wore the lipgloss. My friend said that she thought they looked a teeny bit brighter, but unfortunately as I’m not the biggest fan of my teeth in any case I didn’t take any before and after photos including my teeth to post here today so you will just have to take my word for it on that one!
Both ends of the product come with doe foot applicators, which are fine but I really prefer lipglosses that come with brushes (like the Bourjois Effect 3D). I just find that brushes are better at picking up product and the application is so much more precise. The packaging is a bit unusual and flat (which actually makes it nice and easy to unscrew) which made me think at first that you were getting far less lipgloss compared to other Boujois glosses but having checked you get 5.5ml of lipgloss in a Smile Enhancing Gloss compared with 5.7ml with a normal Effect 3D lipgloss (which currently retail at £6.99 full price).
You don’t get a very generous helping of the tooth gel though at only 2ml, which may be a hint that you’re not supposed to use as much of that as the lipgloss.
I really like this colour which I think is lovely. Here’s a before and after pic. I’m only wearing a touch of concealer on my skin and no other make-up apart from the gloss.
(I have a chapped lip above, I think it’s due to the sudden change in weather, ouch! Time to get out my lipbalms!)
Unfortunately the consistency of the gloss is really quite liquid and runny so it was a bit difficult to get an even application of colour and I had to apply quite a lot of product. I don’t think it shows up too badly in the photos though so perhaps it’s just because I was looking very closely as I was inspecting my lips in a mirror as I applied the gloss. So nobody looking at me would notice the colour was patchy, but I know from the other lipglosses that I own that glosses are capable of doing colour so much better than this.
Above: Not looking too bad here, right?
The gloss is so runny it just does not last on me at all. I wore this during the day on Saturday and had to reapply it three times – and it faded quite badly between reapplications. Normally during the week when I’m working I’ll apply a lip product on the bus on my way to work and maybe go for a sneaky top-up after lunch, but that’s it. I wouldn’t bother reapplying a product more often. That would even be OK if the colour weren’t so bright and faded away quite naturally, but because this colour is so bright and vibrant it just looked washed out and a bit rubbish once it started to fade.
However I had the idea that this gloss might work better over a lasting formula lipstick, which would provide a colour base for the gloss so that the colour wouldn’t appear patchy once applied and it would also mean that there would still be some colour left even after the gloss began to fade. Here I applied the gloss over a dark pinkish lipstick.
Above: Left – liptstick; right – lipgloss over lipstick
The colour pay-off was definitely better over lipstick, and I think this is how I will be wearing this gloss in future. I really can’t be bothered with applying so many products during the week though – as I mentioned normally I’ll just pop some lipstick or gloss on while I’m on the bus on my way into work, so there’s no way I’d be going through the rigmarole of applying this gloss over lipstick every morning. I’m afraid that I can’t really recommend this product because for the price I was expecting a lot better. Since I’ve already bought it and I do love the colour I will try to get some use out of it, but I really think it’s going to have to be reserved for weekends when I have some time to get ready.
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