Au Revoir, Lovely Rouge 28 Prune Imperial...

I have to say good bye to one of my all time favourite lipstick from the Bourjois brand: Lovely Rouge 28 Prune imperial.

Believe me if I say I'm all teary, this lipstick has been with me to the most important acts, festivals, weddings, parties, etc... It has the perfect colour shade for my skin tone, a mid rose-plum colour. If you want your lips to have a distinguished elegant look, this is the shade. It has a beautiful satin shine.

Before, I used Chanel Rouge Allure in 01 Delicate, but it had been a total dissapointment: first of all, the push and take out system I never liked, having to press down hard enough for the click and then grabbing it by the 0.5 cm base left to pull out is uncomfortable; second point, the chanel lipstick broke, yes, the worst nightmare, having an almost brand new lipstick and after a month of usage... broken by the base! Then you are left with a new lippie dangling everytime you use it, getting lipstick all over the walls of the tube and not in your lips... (I tried heating it up and then putting it in the fridge to try and fix it, that is how determined I was... but still no good) a total disaster ending up in the rubbish bin!!

Then I found this lipstick, I never really liked pink, I have this irrational hate for all shades of pink. The Bourjois make-up artist was giving me a night-look make-up and showed me this colour, at first I was like: "Oh no! I can't wear pink, no ways." But she said it was subtle and that it would look good, so I gave in and.... voilá! I had just met my indispensable lippie.

It feels really comfortable, no dryness whilst wearing it. It is not a fully covering lipstick, but a bit transluscent making the colour look very natural. The down part is that the colour doesn't last long, you have to constantly reaply, a pain, really, but the packaging is very cute with a mirror at the top of the cap, very handy for carrying in the handbag.

I am sad since they have removed this lipstick and I can't find a substitute. I tried with Bourjois Sweet Kiss Naturel 08 Rose Délicat and Clinique Long Last Lipstick in Blushing Nude. Here you can see the differences between the three.

I think the winner is Clinique Long Last Lipstick in Blushing Nude, only having a shade more brown and some shine, whilst Bourjois Sweet Kiss Naturel 08 Rose Délicat is more in the pink side and slightly matte. In any case they are both more opaque than the Lovely Rouge 28 Prune Imperial, being more obvious that you are wearing lipstick.

Bourjois So Laque! Violine Chic 35 - Review

First of all let me tell you that since this shade came out, around Christmas time, it attracted my attention, but kept feeling I already have too many nail polishes and that I should stop buying more for some time.... (people have never known me with bare nails). So finally my excuse came by: last week I went to the mall and found a 25% discount... Perfect opportunity!

I love dark shades, and I have owned many different shades of purple, but they have always seemed too purplely for my taste, I was looking for a richer dark violet with warm undertones. I finally found this one, a beautiful dark aubergine colour (as I call it).

All Bourjois So Laque formulas are quite thick, which I like because they give a nice coverage and lasting, however I was surprised that this particular shade felt rather thin when applying it on the nails, after doing the first coat it was a bright warm purple colour, but it left many streaks that weren't fully covered by the second coat. You can see on the picture some uneven darker shading on the nails. Meaning you should use a fuller brush, meaning it will take longer to dry.

The nails do last up to 7 days, aplying a base coat, two coats of nail polish and finishing with a top coat for extra shine and lasting. I am not specially careful with my nails, but I don't do any hard labour hand work, I am talking about the usual typping, writting, washing the dishes king of thing.

Be sure to wait for the coats to dry before aplying the next one, or you will end up with gloopy nails that take ages to fully dry, meaning you are likely to  have them ruined before the first 24 hours. This, you should follow when applying any nail polish.

In my opinion, this formula takes a little too long to dry, the first coat takes around 10 min whilst the second coat takes 20 min approx. If you apply a top coat like I do, you need another extra 3 min or so for that to dry... I have tried my Drop Dry Stimulator from Deborah Nail Space to try and shorten the drying time, but I always find my nails to last less time than without using it. I try to wait one hour before I do work with my hands although I never last more than 30 min . So lets say I take an overall of one hour to do my nails. For me, painting my nails every week is kind of a relaxing therapy, so I don't have much of a lack of patience issue, however I wouldn't recommend painting your nails with this nail polish just before going to bed (like many of us do) because you may wake-up the next morning with a sheet print on your nails that truly ruins the mood for the rest of the day, in my case, after taking so much time to paint them and waiting for them to dry...

I do like the So Laque nail polishes from Bourjois mainly because I love their colour range and I love laquered nails with no shimmer or pearly shine, I like pure laquered nails, and I find this brand gives a really nice resulting lasting nails for an affordable price. I mean O.P.I. has a great formula but I really can't afford having the range of colours I would like to have. I paint my nails every week, and I choose different colours depending on my mood and the season we are in, so I am not the kind of person who stiks to one colour for the rest of their lifes.

Would I recommend this product? Yes, the colour is beautiful for autumn-winter. Only for people with patience with the drying time.

Hope this was useful.