Pink and Undecided: ristra

Lip-Talk 02 : Ristra Lip Care Stick (36 Sparkling Ruby)

Hiya :D!

Before we go into the review, i just want to point out that it was our blog's 1st anniversary two days ago!!! Da***, we both are so BAD that we totally forgot our precious baby's first birthday!!! ZZZ. To think that we actually talked about celebrating it from months ago, and then forgetting it just like that when the date actually rolled around *LOLOLOL* so typically us! In our defense, we were super busy from the day before (too many celebrations, from #Undecided's hubby's belated birthday dinner to Baby Luca's first month-which we will be blogging about soon) *sigh*. I just want to say that it's been a total BLAST! And i love how this whole blogging thing made me get to know a lot of new friends (especially Shasha, Lina, Oline, Katherine and Sabrina *hugs*) as well as new opportunities i wouldn't encounter if it wasn't for this baby! Long live our blog!!! Okay now i'm gonna let you enjoy the review :D!

Have any of you ever heard of the local brand, Ristra? As an Indonesian, i am quite familiar with the name (it's an old brand, i just checked their profile and apparently they were founded at the same year that i was born! That's OLD hahaha) but never really tried out anything from them. Until i received Vanity Trove on July (ohh, i remember back then when local beauty boxes were still super exciting. PFFFTTT)-if you click that link you'd know that this lippie arrived in less-than-perfect condition but VT quickly sent me another one-in ANOTHER shade, so i am actually now a proud owner of two Ristra lipstick hahaha. Was pretty excited because being a beauty junkie, you'd be excited to try anything new haha.

They actually didn't call it a lipstick, instead it's a Lip Care Stick, according to them. The shade that i am going to review right now is 36 Sparkling Ruby.

Photo courtesy of Google, also i dunno if this is their old packaging because the one that i got was in a round tube instead of rectangular

I don't own too many red lipsticks, in fact before my craziness began-i only owned ONE red lipstick (the Oriflame one that had made way too many appearances in this blog due to scarceness of my bright red lippies) that was almost never touched before i started blogging haha, so i was pretty happy to receive this.

It came in a very normal, boring looking green tube (i wonder why Indonesian cosmetic brands likes green so much? I myself prefer pink of course *LOL*. I'm not a huge fan of normal green really-but i love mint and neon green!) that looked mint in the pictures (including the official picture one! So it wasn't my camera's fault lah! Even the professional photo captured the same color!) but in real life it's, you know, greener. That means uglier *LOL*!

The tube was soft and matte (and made from those slightly rubbery material-which is not a hit in the beauty community. Even Nars received a lot of hate for their rubbery packaging! It's not as rubbery as Nars though i think), which is not a great thing for me (because i hate the sound of matte surface against dry skin-i'm sure i've mentioned this more than once! *shudder*) because it gets dirty really easily. Mine was already smudged due to the shipping when it arrived, now the tube's really dirty looking since i chucked it in my make up pouch carelessly when i was having a phase with this (yeah, right before Vampy lips happened) -___-. Again i dunno why cosmetic brands thinks matte, velvety, rubbery packaging's a good idea for something that would be chucked together with other make ups. Dirt trap!

It's much darker in real life, not sure if you can see it in the picture but it has very fine golden shimmer!

The tube contains 3.5gr of lippie, quite normal size-wise i think

Again both my pictures and the official picture failed to show the real color of the bullet! It's a lot darker, with an almost brownish (very slight) tinge. Once applied it's not as dark as it looks on the tube (still quite dark, just not as dark) though. I totally forgot to take a picture of my bare lips, my natural lip color's very pale pink-i'm sure you can find plenty of their pictures scattered in this blog somewhere hehe.

Sorry for blurry picture, my camera's def not for taking close up pictures!

Hahahahaha duck face

The close up picture also didn't catch the real color of the lippie (haish, this one's so hard to photograph), but at the cam-whoring pictures they looked pretty close! I got carried away and snapped a lot of pictures with my messy hair and pajama *LOL*

I'd say the name "Sparkling Ruby" is quite a spot on, when i looked for a picture comparison i'd say this ruby picture really could be the inspiration behind the color!

Now about the formulation : they called this a lip care stick, which means it should be a lip care and a lip stick at the same time i guess? This is a translation of what they stated in their website about this lipstick : Lipstick targeted to care for the lips, available in various of enchanting and safe colors with anti oxidant needed to care for your lips.

Did it do what it claim to do? Well, i'd say it's not drying (compared to most of other lipstick i tried) but i wouldn't say that it's hydrating. You'd still need to use lip balms underneath, in my opinion. But still, since it's not (very) drying, people with healthy, non-chapped lips can use this on its own and i'm pretty sure it won't dry out their lips afterward (result may varies, okay!). I myself always put on lip balms before any lipstick, it's really automatic for me! However in the pictures above, i didn't put on anything (for the purpose of this review) underneath.

Pigmentation also very good (local products seems to nail the pigmentation part! It's the packaging and marketing i think they need to work more in), one swipe was enough to show the fierce color! It also glide very easily, i'd say it's pretty buttery and didn't drag on at all. Due to its fine shimmer, the result is... I guess it'd be called satin finished? I am still not very familiar with different lipstick textures and finished (i just began my love affair with lipsticks earlier this year, can you believe this! I was always a lip gloss kind of gal!) so please be gentle with me if i said anything wrong hahaha.

Like a lot of other local lipstick, it does have a slight scent- the typical lipstick scent that might not be a hit for some people-but i had no problem with the scent (i'd much prefer this typical lipstick scent than some of the other lipsticks like a few of my Revlon's that has an old lipstick kind of smell and a soapy yucky taste). Another plus point's it didn't have any taste when i accidentally licked them (i like sweet tasting lippies, but tasteless ones are good too!).

Lasting power's pretty good for me (but remember, i always say that any lipsticks lasts forever on me-unless i wipe them off!) but because of its creamy and buttery texture, it transfers really really easily. Anything that comes in contact with your lips would be smeared with this lippie, so maybe it's not a good idea to have a make out session wearing this lipstick hahaha! As long as you don't lick or bite your lips, it'll hold until your next meal (definitely would need a touch up after a meal).

Since i am not a matte lip kind of person (not even with satin finish okay hahaha, i prefer mega glossy pouts!), as soon as i took those pictures, i slicked some lip gloss on top of them!

Paired it with Maybelline's Fruity Jelly Lipgloss (old packaging) which was quite transparent

I love the end result!

The price of this lippie's actually on the higher end for a local brand, it's IDR 55.000 (i noticed that Ristra seems to be rebranding themselves to be a higher end brand, i think they used to be a lot cheaper but i could be mistaken! They also have another, more premium line called Platinum Ristra with lipsticks as expensive as IDR 110.000! WOW!). While it is a lot more expensive than most local brands (that costs around IDR 15.000 to IDR 35.000) or even international drugstore brands (like Maybelline! Then again Maybelline in Indonesia's exceptionally low priced, i know because i've done a research for my Collection work before!), but i think the quality's (almost) worth the price (coz i'm cheapo, i'd prefer it to be cheaper of course hahaha).

Overall i am very satisfied with this lipstick, it performed ideally for me. If there's any complains that'd only be the major similarity of this shade with my Oriflame lipstick (and that's because it's ALSO called Sparkling Ruby! LOL) But that's hardly Ristra's fault, isn't it? LOL.

I'd recommend this for people who are looking for a bold, pigmented ruby red lipstick that is buttery and easy to apply without drying out their lips.

I won't recommend this for people who are looking for a dead matte (or glossy, but you can always add gloss like i did!) lipstick that won't budge or transfer easily.

Would i repurchase this? Well, it's a bit pricey for a local brand... I wouldn't mind trying out the other colors (and the Platinum one as well :p) if they're having a big sale, or if it came in a beauty box :p. I don't think i'd buy it on normal price-but remember : never say never (oh i really hate how this motto suddenly reminded me of that Justin Bieber *i just Googled on how to write his name correctly -___-* song pffffttttt. On a completely unrelated topic, i really dislike JB and his songs, but i actually liked his perfumes!)!

Leaving you with more cam-whoring session of me rocking the lippies and recycling this dress that i only worn for a few hours before *LOL*, who says i never wear the same clothes twice???