Shu Uemura Matte Supreme Lip Color in RD03

Is it just me or Shu Uemura's color make up (and brushes) had gotten totally out of whack this last few years? 10 years ago the brand had many covetted classics such as lip color (rd167), single eyeshadow,  blushes (M33E) and interesting palettes. Nowadays it's just random shades thrown together into low effort collaboration (repetitive, overly warm tone on some limited edition seasonal packaging). 

Don't get me wrong, I do think those collaboration with Super Mario and Pokemon are extremely well done, but the effort/credit goes 100% to the product graphic disigners (not the actual makeup). 

After my last makeup purchase of two coral lipsticks (There were neon, slippy formula and hedious white base everything could go wrong did)I was scared away by their dragqueen aesthetics, but luckily Shu isn't just a makeup brand. At least it seems that their skin care and base makeup are still on point, for now...You never know what will happen when a Japanese brand gets  purchased by a western conglomerate.They either buy it to get rid of competitor or milk it like a cash cow (What P&G is doing to SKII currently).

A few months ago, I decided to give Shu's cleansing oil (one of the classics) a try and a tube of lip color came as gift with purchase, a toy is a toy amirite? While the packaging isn't fancy, 2.3ml is pretty generous as it's not something I use only twice (for the first and last time).

RD03 is an inky warm brownish red that's all the rage these years. What's interesting is that the liquid lipstick has a warm base but when it spreads thinner, there is a visible blue undertone (Grandma Magenta alert is on!) .

To be fair, the lip color itself doesn't look cheap. I might even call it refined if it comes with a normal liquid lipstick (not kpop lip tint that stains rightaway and bleeds into Ahole) formula.

On the lips - It seems that Shu Uemura Matte Supreme is indeed the KBeauty style uber pigmented lip color that leaves a fine line boundary (which is very aging), bleeds a little and stains badly the second it's on. The quality isn't bad but the overall look is very cheap, at least on me.

 However, there is one aspect that I really love though, this has an elegant rosewater scent that's exactly the same as their discontinued squeezy lip gloss Vinyl Unlimited.  This similarity just saddens me as because I think the rich, moisturizing gloss formula of Vinyl Unlimited was timelessly beautiful.

There are other (not) redeeming (enough) qualities to it: Unlike the cheaper brands, the inky formula feels thin and not particularly drying when I first tried it. It applies very evenly and forms a dry-touch film that's not completely matte. For the photo session, I didn't wait for it to dry completely as I was rushing to take it off...

Two seconds later [French Accent]. Matte Supreme wouldn't come off with micellar water, thick lanolin based gloss or even toothbrush! I am sure somebody would like it but this is another lip color that ruins the whole day for me.