As regular readers know, I have WAY too many red lipsticks. Or maybe I don’t have enough – either way you look at it, I have a lot of them. And, I’ve been working on swatching all of them for you. You can see previous red lipstick swatch posts here:
And you can find all of my red lipstick swatches, reviews, and comparison posts here.
Today, I have six drugstore red lip products, though none are actually traditional lipsticks – I’ll get into the details later, but all are some kind of combination of sheer lipstick, tinted lip balm, lip stain, lip gloss, or liquid lipstick.
Adore // Romantic // Sweet Strawberry // Candy Apple // Endless Red // PF Red
The full names of the products are (left to right): Revlon Adore Kissable Balm Stain, Revlon Romantic Kissable Balm Stain, Jordana Sweet Strawberry Easyshine Glossy Lip Color, Revlon Candy Apple Lip Butter, L’oreal Endless Red Caresse Wet Shine Stain, Physician’s Formula Red Sexy Booster Glossy Stain.
Revlon Adore Kissable Balm Stain is a brick red with a very subtle shimmer; I can barely see the shimmer when applied, and in fact didn’t even realize it had any shimmer until recently. It’s marked as a tinted balm / stain hybrid, and I think that’s accurate enough; it definitely leaves a persistent stain for me.
Revlon Romantic Kissable Balm stain is my favorite of the balm stains, and I still wear it regularly, especially during summer. I love the color – a warm strawberry red. It also leaves a persistent stain.
Jordana Easyshine Glossy Lip Color in Sweet Strawberry is a really lovely product – it’s a hybrid between a tinted balm and a sheer lipstick, and somewhat similar to the Revlon Lip Butters in texture, though a bit softer. When I first tried it, I didn’t like how glossy it was, but my preferences have changed and I really like it now; I’m thinking of picking up more colors (there are lots of swatches around if you google for them to help select). Note that the Easyshines are scented like the fruit in their name – I find the strawberry scent of this one inoffensive and not too artificial or strong.
Revlon Candy Apple Lip Butter is a warm red; it is very similar to Revlon Romantic Balm stain in color, but it does not stain. There’s not much to say about these that hasn’t been said already, they’ve been reviewed so many times at this point!
L’oreal Caresse Wet Shine Stain in Endless Red is a glossy neutral red. Although it’s very glossy, it doesn’t transfer much at all, and it leaves a VERY persistent stain. I like that it stains, and I love that it doesn’t transfer much – that’s why the L’oreal (and YSL Glossy Stains) are my very favorite options for glossy lips.
Physician’s Formula Sexy Booster Glossy Stain may be marketed as a glossy stain, but it’s not particularly glossy and doesn’t really stain; it is, however, a fabulous red liquid lipstick. I would definitely recommend it, as long as you know what you’re buying!
*As indicated by the buttons at the top of this post, I purchased all the products in this post and this post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.
MAC Deeply Adored (limited edition & no longer available) // 
