Everyone dreamt of being a superhero, a WonderWoman who sorts everything in life. If not, having a powerful lip colour that stays on and on to fight the gloomiest of days will work. Here are your everyday heroes: Neve Cosmetics Pastello Labbra precision lipcolor in Trance, Immortal and Blood.
Trance, Immortal and Blood are three shades from the Neve Cosmetics’ Pastello Lipcolor range made into a capsule collection: Super heroine. Are these shades heroic enough?
Neve Cosmetics Pastello Labbra Precision Lipcolor: product and packaging
Pastello Labbra is Neve Cosmetics line of handy lip colours. Pastello means ‘crayon’ in Italian, the one we were used to colouring with at school. Pastello looks like a wooden crayon and combines the precision of a lip pencil and the comfort of a jumbo crayon, with the colour payoff of a lipstick. Available in a nice array of colours and finishes, Pastellos are 1.10g wood pencils. The body of each pencil has a similar colour and finish to each shade. Super slim and light as a feather. The Superheroine capsule collection comes in a slim box designed by the Italian illustrator Sara Pinchelli.
Formula & texture
Neve Cosmetics is an advocate for natural and cruelty-free beauty. Not a surprise that Pastello precision lipcolor is cruelty-free and vegan-friendly. Its formula is made to glide with ease and makes your lips look smooth and feel nourished. It contains coconut and hydrogenated vegetable oils, vitamin E and vegetal waxes. The overall texture is soft and creamy, but the softness depends on the finish of each shade, as we’ll see in the next paragraphs.
Neve Cosmetics Pastello Labbra Precision Lipcolor: Trance
Trance is the electric lip shade in the Superheroine capsule collection. Described as a ‘saturated fuchsia with dark periwinkle blue interference’ and satin finish, Trance is a bright fuchsia with a cold undertone originating from its intense blue-toned violet soft shimmer. The finish is soft metallic, and its texture is smooth and creamy. It’s the creamiest of the three and can last around 5 hours.
Neve Cosmetics Pastello Labbra Precision Lipcolor: Blood
Everyone loves a good red. Blood is one of the most decisive reds worn so far. Blood is and ‘intense blood red, velvety’ with a matte finish. I agree with that: the reddest of the reds. Swatched on my skin is a dark, opaque red which turns into an oxblood hue. But on my lips instead, this lip colour looks more vivid and with a blue hint. This lip pencil/lipstick is opaque in coverage, but with a lively brilliance. Hence, Blood applies more like a satin lipstick. The tip feels harder on my lips, and it takes a couple of seconds more to warm up and glides as Immortal does.
Neve Cosmetics Pastello Labbra Precision Lipcolor: Immortal
Immortal is a shade that scratched my head. I wouldn’t usually pick something like this, and instead…
Pastello Labbra in Immortal is a ‘dark hazel nude’ with universal wearability and matte finish. Immortal is a lip colour that looks totally different before and after you swatch it. If you look at the tip of the lip pencil, it looks brown. Swatched on the skin, it’s a brown with a mauve tint. Once on my lips, it’s definitely a medium nude shade. It’s a sort of caramel where a mauvy note is clearly visible.
It results in an interesting medium puce tone (let’s say #A95C68). The secret of its wearability and universality is its neutrality in terms of colour warmth. Of the three, Immortal is the second for smoothness as it glides very well. The texture – as that of the shade Blood – is creamy and with a high coverage; its finish is luminously matte, in short, satin. It lasts around 6 hours.
PROS:
- They’re versatile (work well as lip pencils to contour and lipsticks to fill in),
- have a gentle formula,
- an overall smooth texture,
- high coverage,
- high colour payoff,
- are cruelty-free,
- vegan,
- travel-friendly,
- long-lasting
- don’t sit on lip lines.
CONS:
- their cap tends to break with ease,
- (need a sharpener).
Swatch-athon
Super-charged and reliable, these lip colour pencils are what you’re looking for if you’re looking for versatility, high performance and comfort. Neve Cosmetic Pastello Labbra precision lipcolor line is regularly available online at €6.80, which is an honest price for a great quality lip colour.
Neve Cosmetics Pastello’s formula, texture and size work. The pencil has that wooden smell of the coloured crayons I loved as a child (this secretly moved me the first time I used a Pastello, to be honest), and it’s slim to fit effortlessly in any flat makeup pouch. However, the same pencil shape hides a little inconvenience: you need a sharpener quite often, and the cap cracks terribly easily, but – fingers crossed – the tips haven’t dried so far.
At first, I was betting my pants I was going to love Trance and its irresistible shine, but I’m wearing Immortal more often and for shooting as well. An easy-to-wear nude never goes wrong, but this one is effortlessly powerful, a superhero in disguise.
Neve Cosmetics’ SuperHeroine capsule collection was a purchase dictated by a strong impulse to buy some nice makeup, and I’m glad I did!
Valentina Chirico aka Valens
