Revlon Colorburst Lacquer Balms and Matte Balms

I stumbled across a display of the new (limited edition?) Revlon Colorburst Lacquer and Matte Balms while I was on my hunt for the Maybelline Color Tattoo matte shades.  I spotted the display at both Bed Bath & Beyond and Harmon's.  I was pretty excited to come across these because I have really been enjoying the jumbo lip pencil craze.  It seems like every brand now makes some form of this jumbo lip color/crayon/balm.  I like them because they are such no-brainer products.  They are easy to use and typically pretty low maintenance.

I believe there are 20 shades in this collection; 10 lacquer and 10 matte.  I only picked up three of the colors.  This was mostly because I wanted to try them out before going buck wild and buying all of them.  Although, if I end up loving these as much as I love the Colorburst Lip Butters then it is likely that I will go back and pick up more colors.  I also didn't want to go too crazy because I just bought a few of the Cover Girl Jumbo Gloss Balms and it seemed a little redundant as I tend to gravitate towards the same shades of lip color all the time.

I bought two of the lacquer shades and only one of the matte colors.  I am not a big fan of matte lip colors as I find them to be drying and not very flattering on me but wanted to give this one a fair shot.

The two lacquer shades that I have are (150) Desirable and (105) Demure.  Desirable is a bright cranberry red while Demure is a very light pink.  Both colors have a nice glossy finish and apply smoothly. These pencils have nice pigmentation - I would say they are more than a wash of color but not quite as opaque as a lipstick.

The matte color that I thought I would get the most use out of is (205) Elusive.  I would describe Elusive as a mid-tone pink that is a little brighter than I thought it would be. As expected the matte colors seem to be more opaque than the lacquers.  I had to be a little more careful when applying this color since matte lip products tend to feather.  I don't necessarily think this is a bad product.  Like most matte lip products they are drying on the lips but I think that is just the nature of the product. I believe there is a darker purple color in the matte line that I would love to try.

An interesting thing to note is the scent of these products.  They have a pretty strong licorice scent which I find to be pleasant but I can see some people not loving it.  Jumbo gloss balms tend not to be very long-lasting.  These are no exception.  I got a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours wear out of these guys which is pretty decent for what they are.

All in all I don't think these are much different than any of their counterparts on the market.  There isn't anything about these that would make me choose them over any other brand.  The price ($6.99) is comparable to other drugstore versions.  If these become part of the permanent Revlon line and sold at all drugstores you can usually catch a pretty good sale as well.