Every year that I attend the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF as we lovingly call it, I always make sure to check in on the activations by one of their lead sponsors, L'Oreal! In years past they've had lounges to enjoy that granted access to view the Roy Thomson Hall red carpet, customized makeup recommendations with makeup artists, and always with a fun perk to top it off, whether it's a nail polish, lip gloss or a lipstick. Since this is my 12th year of INTENSE TIFF going, I have a small collection of said products in my collection, and this year I got to add a new piece to my lipstick vault - L'Oreal Colour Riche in Bold Mauve!
For the last few years, TIFF has shut down King Street West for a few days, a core street that connects three TIFF venues, and turns it into a pedestrian strip where people can engage with brands, have a drink, eat some food, and sometimes catch a glimpse of celebrities and win prizes! This weekend I took a walk with my boyfriend and we were regaled with free jerky from Lorissa's Kitchen, popcorn from Lyft, Nestea iced tea, 7-Up, Lindt chocolate and, my favourite, a lipstick from L'Oreal. (Not my boyfriend's favourite though, he went wandering while I waited in line.)
But before I could attain said free lipstick, I waited with other beauty fans in line for about 15 minutes. Later on I saw the line was HUGE, so I definitely chose the right time to come! When I actually entered the activation, I saw that the activity involved sitting at a vanity and playing with a screen mounted onto the vanity, it turned out the screen was an AR app called ModiFace box which acted like a Snapchat filter! On the screen I was able to play with the makeup looks of varying decades like the 50s, 60s and 90s, to see what the makeup of the time would look like on me. Check out my 90s look in the slideshow above with L'Oreal Colour Riche in Spice!
I thought that the usability of the app was quite neat, I would describe it almost like Cher's outfit app in Clueless, except for makeup. The looks appeared rather subtle and not clownish, except the eyelashes looked BONKERS with my glasses, but the lips and cheeks looked great! When I was done I had the chance to pick my lipstick and I thought that the 90's lipstick I tried on in my selfie would be my choice, but then when I saw the swatches, I actually gravitated towards the Bold Mauve, a brown greige colour that reminded me SO much of fall.
When I got home, I made sure to check all my other lipsticks to see if I had a dupe for this anywhere in my collection, and I was happy to discover that nothing quite looked like it! I do tend to have a lot of browns and darker mauve colours, but after swatching about 20 things on my arms, these were the closest I could find that had that similar 90
Dupes in my collection to L’Oreal Colour Riche Bold Mauve - Bite Beauty Molasses is not far!
Bite Beauty Molasses is definitely the closest of the three others I swatched it beside, Bold Mauve is deeper but they have very similar characteristics and I could see myself going either way depending on my mood in a day. And while the depth of colour of Bite Beauty Whiskey is completely different than Bold Mauve, there was something about the two that seemed aligned somehow, perhaps because they are slightly more on the brown side of their respective shades. And while I swatched these in the wrong order, I found Chocolate Honey in a similar family as these other lipsticks, something that has a touch of taupe but lives in this weird middle area.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with my selection this year! This is definitely a colour I'll wear as leather jacket season starts to ramp up. You can find your own L'Oreal Colour Riche Bold Mauve at most drugstores, and I saw it retailing from 7.99-10.99 depending on the store!