Review: Revlon Ultra HD™ Lipstick in Primrose #835

I know it's been awhile since these came out. I was hesitant to buy the Revlon Ultra HD™ Lipsticks given the lukewarm reviews, but I had a coupon and there was a deal, and well I got suckered in. There are certainly pros and cons about these lipsticks, though I have admittedly only tried one: Primrose #835, which unlike the horrible stock photos online is somewhere in between a rose and a red (though still in the rose family, if that makes sense - which makes it perfect for those of us scared to wear red during the daytime).

I've found the price for these all over the place, which isn't unusual with drugstore products. Walgreens and ULTA online say $9.99, drugstore.com sells them for $8.99 (though currently $7.19 on sale), Target seems to price them around the $7.99 mark. I don't recall how much I paid for mine, but I bought it at CVS which tends to head towards the higher end, but I know I used coupons and Extrabucks, so I doubt I paid much.

The packaging is both elegant and frustrating as you can't twist the lipstick down, which invariably means lipstick on the sides of the lovely clear tube. Not my favorite.

Revlon says that these Ultra HD lipsticks have "true color clarity without the heavy feel" and that they provide "high definition color in one smooth swipe" (note that they don't make mention of the wear time).

On the left we have 1 swipe and on the right, we have 2. I'd say that's pretty good. It's not patchy, it slides on smoothly and the pigment is pretty intense.

On unmoisturized lips, the lipstick isn't exactly awesome when it comes to gliding and eliminating the look of lip lines; however, I wore this lipstick over the course of 10 hours and here's what I found.

1. The lipstick doesn't last at all (unless you don't drink anything or eat anything) and definitely requires a lip liner if you want any longevity. As I mentioned above, Revlon doesn't appear to make claims about these being long-wearing, so the fact that they aren't shouldn't come as a great surprise.
2. They smell faintly like the Estee Lauder lipsticks, which may bother some, but I tend to like the smell of those so this lighter fragrance was fairly pleasant for me.
3. Ignoring the wear time, these are actually moisturizing and I felt my lips were in better condition after wearing and reapplying during the day than had I been wearing a different lip product - which I don't get with many of the famed moisturizing lip products on the market (the lip butters, for example, tend to dry my lips out).
4. As one would expect, since I found them moisturizing, they aren't sticky, there's no glitter and they are comfortable on the lips. I basically couldn't feel it.
5. The claims of  high pigment is definitely there - though as I mentioned, it's not long wearing.
6. I was a bit put off at first by the bold (to me) color of this lipstick, but I found it pretty wearable as the day wore on and dare I say, a little sexy? Not quite red, but red enough to make me feel as though I was wearing red.

So, in summary,  Revlon Ultra HD™ Lipstick in Primrose #835

pros:
high pigment
creamy formula
comfortable on the lips/moisturizing



cons:
poor packaging
poor lasting power
scent might bother some

True color clarity without the heavy feel check
High definition color in one smooth swipe mostly

Honestly, I'll probably pick up more of these as I dislike minty lip colors (which excludes the popular Colorburst Balm Stains) and as I said, I tend to find the lip butters drying. Next time, though, a lipliner is definitely in order!

Have you tried the Revlon Ultra HD™ Lipsticks? What were your thoughts?