Innisfree Cream Mellow Lipstick in 04

I was just talking about price-gouging yesterday and now I am reviewing a drugstore lipstick that I paid double-the- market-price for. As a veteran couponing master, I am still deeply ashamed as I rarely shelled out more than five bucks for my drugstore goodies. 

Life snows on. You gotta take the glamour shot and complain about the said lipstick on your blog (then buy more lipsticks, yup yup). Actually, beside the jacked up price, there isn't much to complain about.

It all started with the /r/Asianbeauty. Around sometime last fall, there were numerous PSA (but I think it was a shill) sort of posts about a new store opening near Koreatown Midtown Manhattan. The store is mostly about sheetmasks so I didn't really give it much thoughts. When I heard that they had a Thanksgiving weekend sale going on, I decide to stop by and pay a visit. Who doesn't like some cute K-skincare items with potential discount?

As soon as I got it, I found out that it's just like any other K-town beauty store: Cute, small and come with exorbitant markup. For many bottled skincare, their sale prices were easily over 40% higher than Amazon while regular price are double the Amazon price.

Luckily when it comes to smaller makeup items, the prices were much more reasonable: Etude House and Innisfree (they literally have three types of single eyeshadow?) are on the same level as ebay so that's where the ball (my wallet) dropped. 

As I picked up some of the eye candies. I also went ahead and grabbed an Innisfree Creammellow Lipstick. 04 (it has a shade name but me and the Korean language are not friends) was the shade that stood out so I added it to my little basket. When I stepped out of the store and looked down at the receipt...

"The heck the lipstick was 18 bucks?" 

And this is how the hero has fallen.

Innisfree Creammellow Lipstick has a relatively simple and minimalist packaging: White textured plastic (hence gummy) with a base indicating the shade.

While it might look a bit unessisarily long when uncapped, I found that the tube has a good ergonomics: The lenth and thickness of the base, combined with the hard lipstick formula, is notably comfortable and convenient to hold and swipe on. 

It's slim and easy to carry (not sure how long does it take to turn gray once goes into my blackhole of a bag) without going to full blown k-beauty kute route. I have tried a lot (really) of lipstick so it wasn't particularly impressive.

Innisfree Creammellow 04 is a reddish orange coral in a semi-sheer cream formula that's balmy, a bit glossy and light weight on the lips. In my lippie repertoire, it's most similar to Kiko Glossy Lip Stylo. This color looks shimmer-free on the lips and in the swatch but there are some miniscule glimmering particle if you stare at the lipstick itself. 

Again if you sniff closely or duckface a lot, there is a light floral candy scent (Kasugai Flower Kiss anybody?) 

I like all things coral so I enjoy wearing this shade. It's nothing unique or special and the color leans more toward garish-bright than it is lit-the-face bright. While the formula isn't actively quenching, it locks in moisture and keeps lips soft when it's not parched up.

Overall. It's a pretty good formula (same quality as Revlon lip butter and Canmake) to play with for a single-digit price. There is no way that I would pay 18 dollars for something like this again and I doubt I would shell out the 9-dollar ebay price and wait weeks for it (airmail from Korea takes a long time to get to me)...

I am going back to Canmake!