LADUREE: #MY PINK THOUGHTS

This is the first time I've talked about Laduree's makeup on my blog, although I promise more reviews of the general existing catalogue, and maybe even more of a thorough look into their brand history. This is typically extensive, as Japanese brand cosmetics tend to go through phases of releasing and renewing products without much notice to audiences (it is usually practice for Japanese brands and to Japanese consumers, but is definitely not the case for Western brands, eg Urban Decay's Naked 1 send off.) 

Today, however, I wanted to talk about their new line of My Pink lip sticks, which was released as their  2019 spring collection. 

You can currently (around January 2019 if you need this on Wayback Machine) find this here. 

A picture of the #myPink promotion pamphlet with all the new colors released. 

I typically really enjoy the higher end and luxury aspect of Laduree's makeup, and I love the formulas of their stick rogues and their matte rogues (which from what I can tell, have since been discontinued, and I just only found about). My guess is they must have discontinued their matte rogues (with their impractical packaging) and replaced them with "lip color", which are "lipsticks in shades of happiness-inducing pink, with excellent color pay-off and meltingly delectable feel of use."

I spent about half an hour in the shop deciding what color I wanted to buy and try. Since I wasn't looking for stronger colors, such as the 'dramatic' ones, and so I chose from the 'relaxing' and 'romantic' categories they had on offer, I ended up trying 09, Rogue Dentelle, 08, Rogue Capucine, and 07, Rogue Passion. 

Admittedly, the formula is definitely 'meltingly delectable", but the color pay off is less than optimal. It has such a creamy and slippery texture that it's hard to build up the color, and there's a strange neon/bright cast to the color that makes it look awful on my neutral skin tone (and also my friend, who has much warmer undertones than me, who I went with.) 

Rogue Dentelle and Rogue Capucine looked stark on my skin, a bit like dead pastel pink lips, and made my skin look very orange and not pleasant at all. On the other hand, Rogue Passion with its neon orange cast, also just looked a bit like too much Fanta and was a little bit uneven with the lip brush application that the sales assistant offered to us. 

Unfortunately, because the rest of the colors were not of interest to me at all, I didn't end up being able to pick any of their new lip colors, and I'm not interested in their eyeshadows, or their pressed powders. 

I really wish the colors worked for me because they looked promising, but I suspect that most of their 'pink' colors were formulated using very cool toned/blue based pink. These feel like they were made for cooler and paler skin tones than what I had, and definitely did not cater to my friend's as well. Additionally, due to the lack of pigment and slippery texture, it ends up being more of a uneven sheen of neon lip balm, rather than the more solid colors of the matte rogues. 

I don't think this will be a product I'll consider buying in the future with the color range as it is, but if they change them to more complimentary colors, I would consider trying these. 

However, I find Laduree's color selections hit or miss most of the time, sometimes they'll work amazingly for me, other times they just aren't great at all, which is what I found with their previous lip colors as well, so I'm not too surprised that I didn't like these, although I really wish I did! 

The promotion: 

Laduree rented out a little store on the main street of Omotesando for their special event with the release of their new lip colors and formula. I was lucky enough to catch this event (which ends on the 30th of January) while it was still on, so I took a few pictures. 

The store front! There are a few more pictures of it on the official page here and here. 

The official promotion of the shop also included two free gifts with purchase if you bought over 6000 yen, which was the price of a little less than two lipsticks. 

The free gift was a little black makeup bag, and also a matching tumbler. 

Taken from here.

Taken from here. You can also see the relaxing, romantic and dramatic categories they suggested to customers. 

The interior of the shop is decorated so beautifully but it's hard to move around without feeling like you're going to knock something over. 

They even did a promotion where if you posted an Instagram picture of the store with the hashtag "#MyPiNK表参道", which is My Pink, Omotesando, you could receive a free tiny notepad, and I also smashed out that IG post for this notepad. I didn't take it down either, because I genuinely felt bad that I wasn't able to get anything I wanted. 

Pamphlet and the free gift of a notepad decorated with 5 cartoon animal illustrations. 

Unfortunately, despite being able to catch this release, I just didn't like any of the lip colors on my skin, the lighter ones did not suit me at all, and I wasn't looking for a vibrant and sheer color either, and I'm definitely pretty sad I wasn't able to get the free gifts with purchase, but I loved being able to experience the special event!