I've been roaring through my collection of reds lately, attempting to document them before I wear them down to stubs. While neutral girls might find this boring and even offensive, vampy types will sympathize with my need to isolate and describe the best of the best of the rouge. I mean, what could be more important? Surrioussly.
 MAC Dare You | We'll do Dare You first. It looks more exciting in the tube than it is on the lip. This is, how you say... a pedestrian red. A red that's not really going to piss anyone off. Job-interview red. A warm, slightly ochre-ish mid-red with a medium glossy finish and the merest hint of a gold-toned frost going on. The result is attractive enough and certainly lip-plumping, so if you're no Jolie and are chasing more volume, you might want to look into this shade. And it won't get you kicked off the bus or sent home from school. |
| Dare You is a cremesheen and a pretty thick one at that, which means longer wear than can usually be expected from this group; I'd say 3 hours before having to touch it up. I exclude meals and drinks from my calculations because they do fuck with this finish in a big way and you will end up with smearage. The frost keeps it a little more stable than something like Dark Side or Hang Up, which are true migration monsters. Don't get me wrong- DY is a pretty enough lippy and widely flattering. It just doesn't shriek in your face and I kind of prefer that. In fact I sold my DY because it bored me that much.  |  Russian Red, Lady Danger, Lady Bug, Dare You, Ruby Woo I can't believe I've never owned Viva Glam 1 until now. What was I thinking? As everyone probably knows, it's a classic deep, warm matte red, very opaque and very intensively pigmented. There is some brown going on in there; some say it's a bit 90's but they probably weren't even there and can all go to hell because it's wonderfully emphatic and pretty much suits everyone, doesn't it? I don't bleach my teeth and it doesn't make mine look yellow, so there's nothing really to bitch about. Wear time? Until you scrub it off, basically. |
VG1 is very photogenic as far as reds go- so many blow out and render poorly and something like Ruby Woo gives endless trouble in this respect. So if you're looking to be memorialized whilst wearing a dramatic lip, this is the shade I'd personally choose.
| VG1 is a good matte, the kind that doesn't bunch its pigment when you press your lips together or leave your poor mouth feeling like a carpet burn after a few hours. And last time I looked, 100% of the sale price goes to AIDS research and charities so we can write off some of that consumerist guilt in the course of acquisition. For this reason it's doubly unfortunate that the whole Viva Glam range with its distinctive red packaging seems beloved by the Chinese fake MAC industry; be wary of those offered too cheaply online. Other than that, I can't think of much bad to say about good old Viva Glam 1 except perhaps don't get it on your white T-shirt. I don't own one, so we're cool. |  MAC Dark Side, VG1, Ruby Woo, Ladybug, Russian Red; outdoor unflashed. |
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