Sephora Ultra Shine Lip Gloss - Color: 14 Shiny Natural Look

Image from my camera

Intro:
With spring and summer trends shouting for bright colors in both eye makeup and clothes, I was feeling a little like a twelve year old trying to dress up like Nicki Minaj, with the bright pink lipgloss I normally wear.  While Nicki Minaj's use of color is awesome as a performer, I feel more comfortable using one bright color on my face and having the rest neutral.  However, this meant that I had to find a neutral color for my lips if I wanted to wear eye-popping colors on my eyes.



Bare is boring (why wear nothing on your lips when there are entire warehouses full of product that can make them appear to be nude?) but I can't stand the "foundation" look that washes out your lip color and makes you look like you were attacked by Mr Smith from The Matrix.  Instead I set out to look for the perfect light peach color that would complement my beautifully loud eyeshadows that I'd been excitedly waiting to wear.

Honestly, I didn't get very far in my expedition for nude lipgloss greatness because I have a small Sephora obsession that forces me to explore it before any other cosmetic stores.  This is unfortunate, since Sephora is not the most affordable place for a university student to buy makeup, even if it is the most beautiful.  Luckily, the actual Sephora brand is the cheapest brand in the store and the brand has just about every color of every cosmetic in existence. And you can try each one of them on! After making myself over, and over and over in all the colors, I finally remembered the point of this whole escapade and found the color I'd been searching for.

Review:

Image from my camera

At $14 US, and $18 Canadian (why the prices are so drastically different I cannot say), Sephora's Ultra Shine Lip Gloss is less expensive that most of the high end brands like MAC and NARS.

There are so many colors to choose from, which makes it better than the drugstore brands.  The color that I bought, 14 Shiny Natural Look, was just what I was looking for.  It's slightly lighter than my natural lip color, and the shine is very pretty, so it doesn't look like I'm not wearing anything, but it's not so pigmented that it steals the show away from my eyes, which I wanted to focus on with bright eye shadows.

The gloss is quite sticky, which can turn a lot of people off, especially when that one strand of hair won't leave your lips alone.  However, I don't mind the stickiness because it keeps my lips moisturized for hours, until I eat something.  The moisturizing feature is one of the main reasons I prefer lip gloss to lip stick so I'm happy that it lasts so long.

For such a long bottle there's a surprisingly little amount of product; there's only 0.11 oz. compared to the 0.24 oz squeeze tube of another lip gloss I have which is half the size.  The size of this Sephora lip gloss allows it to have a long applicator which is much easier to use than a squeeze tube, but I'm still disappointed that there's not much product in the bottle.

Overall, I loved the color and shine of Sephora's Ultra Shine Lip Gloss.  However, I feel like I could get a similar color at a much cheaper price at a drugstore or Walmart so that when my gloss runs out (which it's going to do soon given the small amount of product) I'll be able to replace it without starving my wallet quite so much.  I wonder how much better quality a high end lip gloss is than a drug store brand.  Is the price difference worth it when, in my experience, they all look and feel about the same?