Tarte Knew What We Needed Before We Knew We Needed It

It's always nice when a cosmetics line anticipates what you need next, like a partner in a healthy relationship. So it was with Tarte this year.  Amid the frenzy of lip stains that came out last spring, ranging from the horrendous felt tip pens of Cover Girl Outlast Lip Stain and Revlon Just Bitten (even more work than CG with its annoying two-step process of covering the gross, dry felt tip pen with balm), all the way to goopy glosses by the major cosmetic houses that could hardly call themselves stains at all, came a parting of the clouds known as Tarte's Lipsurgence.

Already a perennial favorite of mine starting with its Flush cheek and lip stain many years ago, Tarte introduced Lipsurgence this spring claiming that it would increase my lips' moisture content by 6000% in 28 days. Really? Well, I don't care and I really have no idea how I would even figure out if this were true. All I know is that I totally fell in love with this product, and the timing could not have been more perfect. Spring turned into one of the hottest and driest summers on record, a summer when it was hard to be bothered with makeup at all (or what we all had on melted right off) and here was this lovely-textured lip color and balm, sheer enough to put on without a mirror but pretty enough to be noticeable, with its jojoba oil, its peppermint for awesome taste and smell, and vitamins C and E.

But now this wretched summer is over and, as if on cue, my Lipsurgence is running out. It didn't seem right to replace it with more of the same - Tarte seemed to have made this product just for summer.  So imagine my glee when I walked into Sephora for my usual survey of new products, only to find a whole new line of Lipsurgence natural matte lip stains, custom-made for fall in matte colors! The colors are similar to the original line-up, but more muted and subtle, more...well...fall-like. The texture is, as expected, drier (although they're holding to that 6000%!) but the colors are lovely and the matte finish is just what the season needs when you don't really want to go all lipstick-y but you want more than a lip balm or your ChapStick. My favorite is Lively.

 

Thank you, Tarte, for knowing what we needed, when we needed it!