I'm a sucker for a lot of things. Cats, beer, macarons, coffee, nail polish, matryoshka dolls, lipstick, etc. But if there's one thing I'm an even bigger sucker for, it's any of those items for free! In September at the Toronto International Film Festival, I had just picked up my tickets for The Riot Club when I noticed the L'Oreal tent nearby had almost no line! True to my nature, I quickly darted over and joined in.
Turns out the tent was dedicated to promoting the Makeup Genius app, a really neat makeup simulator that did a fantastic job of testing out various L'Oreal products on my face - but VIRTUALLY. And one of the product lines they had on the app? The Colour Riche Extraordinaire collection.
Now, I worked for an opera company for years, so the charm of naming the entire product line on musical terms wasn't lost on me. But they only had a few glosses left by the time I made my selection, so my pick was Orange Tempo, a bright tangerine shade that smelled of passionfruit and mango.
Orange Tempo turned out to be a hyper-pigmented gloss that managed to moisturize my lips and really add a dazzling pop of colour that worked on a made-up face, or in casual day-to-day wear. The applicator is a flat doe foot that made it really easy for me to apply a whisper of colour, or a whole stack of it. I found that Orange Tempo looked particularly great when I painted a full coat on my lips first and then filled in any missing parts. Two coats would've been overload.
On the other hand. Ruby Opera is a colour that can be layered and used differently. In my picture I have just one sweep of colour on my lips, but if I add a little more, the colour intensifies (you can see a thicker coat on I'm a Beauty Geek). This colour wasn't as unique as Orange Tempo and it looked a LOT darker in the tube than in reality, but it's a great blue-red gloss that can be a great staple for your gloss collection.
In terms of longevity, I find that, as with many glosses, your mileage may vary. I had a habit of applying this at work because I found as long as I wasn't eating/drinking, the colour lasted throughout hours of meetings and interactions. While I shouldn't kiss my boyfriend with this on (shouldn't, but did!) if you do wear this out to dinner, be sure to check in on it every once in awhile. And while I find that it doesn't suffer from feathering but it will fade out over the course of the day, so have it handy to reapply.
Also, have I mentioned how luxe/high end these look? Not bad for something you can grab for about $10!