L'Oreal Colour Riche Shine in Polished Tango and Luminous Coral

I am the type to never let go of grudges and L'Oreal is a conglomerate that always made me bitter. How should I start? In my short-ish consumer memory, L'Oreal has 

1. After having purchased Shu Uemura, it pulled all the counters off American market to "focus on their other high end brands".

2. Decided to stop selling all tasteful sheer lipstick/glosses from their drugstore brands, leaving only dramatic matte, bold behind that's utterly unwearable unless you are an Insta-star. Of course those beautiful sheer are still widely available from their high end Armani and YSL, for a "reasonable" $37 (the formula is on the same level as the discontinued Maybelline/L'Oreal). 

3. Bought CeraVe and almost immediately reformulated their PM moisturizer(that I happen to have, pretty sure they did the same to many products), replacing it with something worse. I am not surprised if the used the beloved formula on other more expensive lines. 

4. Raised the price of Shu Uemura natural brushes, quoting rising material cost. This is understandable to me but then...

5. Suddenly switched supplier of those Shu brushes (it used to be made by Japanese fude house Tanseido), to synthetic hair, while keeping the sky high price tag. I have accidentally bought one by mistake (the site slyly avoided mentioning whether it's natural or synthetic) and the new eyeshadow brush has entirely different structure and performance, no bloody way it's worth $71 (plus tax). This is one of the very few items I decided to return, within 20 seconds. 

Basically, this is a brand that exemplifies corporate greed, a market giant that gradually eliminates affordable gems then tells you that you have to pay premium to look "not cheap", simply because they control a large portion of the American mass market...

I don't think their plots is working at intended because as a consumer, if I can't get affordable makeup in my local drugstore, there are Cezanne, Canmake and Chifure (still affordable after markup).  Instead of buying waxy thin lipstick from YSL, I get more options from indies and international brands. It's not a matter of life or death (like Insulin) so there is always a dozen of other companies to buy from and at the end, L'Oreal is hurting nobody but themselves. 

End of rant. 

Last year while I was walking around CVS, I noticed that L'Oreal finally released a range of colorful sheer lipsticks and since the shades selection looks pleasing enough, I got two to play with (yup I stacked on several coupons). 

The packaging of L'Oreal Colour Riche Shine lipstick looks extremely cheap (and sticker residue would stay on forever) but the design is distinct and kind of endearing actually. 

 

The two shades I got are Polished Tango (creamy warm guava pink) and Luminous Coral (warm cantaloupe). Both have some creamy opacity that translates into a small amount of white base on more naturally red lips (I can see it during summer but not winter, when my lip color is lighter). 

 

The texture is smooth and mildly slippy - I find it texturally similar to YSL rouge volupte and the discontinued Maybelline Color Whisper lipstick. I think the older Maybeline and L'Oreal have better colors that melts into skin tone. There is a light powdery floral scent that I don't find it offensive.

Polished Tango - Looks a bit Barbie pink here but it will creamier on paler lips.

Luminous Coral - The white base is visible in close up but totally fine a foot away. 

Overall: These are really good lipsticks at this price range. I wish they would bring back those previously released shades by Maybelline, not gonna happen if they want people to pay for YSL.