LORAC Lips With Benefits Lipgloss Spring 2012 Swatches and Review

LORAC has a brand new gloss collection out for Spring 2012. LORAC makes one of my favorite glosses of all time (the Multiplex 3D duochrome ones), so I was quite excited to hear that they were adding a new type of gloss in their lineup. Are they as fantastic as the Multiplex ones? No, not exactly, but they're still pretty cool. Take a look.


The brand new LORAC Lips with Benefits glosses are an extremely visually-appealing layered gloss. They each consist of four different shades layered in swirled in each tube. When applied, the swirls of color combine on the lips to make another color. A little bit like those tie-dye glosses they did a while back. The Lips With Benefits formula is also supposed to have some nice vitamins (Vitamins C and E) and antioxidants (acai and pomegranate extracts, vitamin C) to care for the lips and provide a non-sticky, hydrating formula.

These are one of the coolest looking glosses ever. They're way too pretty and interesting for just one picture of each, so I took about a million. Please click on any of them if you'd like to see more detail.

The shades are Alex, Ben, Chris and Josh.

They come equipped with the standard doe-foot wand applicator.

Another thing about these that's really nice is that the pattern is different on each side of the gloss. The glittery colors in these look especially cool unmixed. Here's a closer look at each shade.

LORAC Lips With Benefits in Alex


Alex


LORAC Lips With Benefits in Ben


Ben


LORAC Lips with Benefits in Chris


LORAC Lips With Benefits in Josh

There are two downsides to the cool design, though. The first being that you're never quite sure what the end result of mixing the colors is going to be when viewing the tubes. That can make it hard to decide what color to buy, not knowing how it will look when they're mixed. The second is that once you use them a few times, the layered zig-zag pattern gets smudged and then eventually disappears:

This is after about half a dozen uses. It doesn't look too bad, but you can see that the colors will eventually just blend together in the tube.

This is how each shade looks when applied:

In natural light and with flash. Alex, Ben, Chris, Josh. You can see that a little of the silver sparkle that's there in the tube does show up in the final color. I wouldn't call it glittery, but there are some good sized silver sparkles in each shade.

Here's what I thought.

What I liked:

• They look awesome.
  
• They smell amazing- a sweet but slightly caramel-like burnt sugar scent, just like the layer of caramelized sugar on top of crème brûlée.
• Attractive, solid tubes.
• Very good applicator, easy application.
• Smooth, silky, completely non-sticky formula.
• Decent wear time, they're not so slippery that they wear off immediately.
• Good color selection.
• Pretty good amount of product in the tubes (0.19 oz).

What I didn't like:

• The design eventually gets destroyed, and the design is one of the main reasons I like these.
• Has a bit of an odd taste to it, but nothing terrible. It doesn't taste exactly like it smells and it's not sweet like the Multiplex glosses.
• They're on the pricey side ($18), but still not as much as the Multiplex ones ($22 for 0.17 oz).
• These tend to look a little frosty when they're on, probably from all the fine silver and white shimmer.
• Hard to tell how the gloss is going to look when it's on because the colors are unmixed in the tube.
• Not moisturizing, but not drying either. I expected a more slippery, balmy-feeling gloss formula.

Overall, I like these for the novelty factor of the swirled design, the comfortable non-sticky formula, and the awesome sugary scent, so I think I might pick up the rest of the shades. Sephora only carries four shades, but Ulta has seven. My favorite one is Alex and my second favorite is Chris. Alex was a bit of a surprise- it turned a slightly warmer, slightly darker rosy shade than I thought it would be and it's really nice on me. I don't have another gloss like it. The two lighter shades (Ben and Josh) are too light and frosty for me when applied heavily, but look nice blotted down.

These are limited edition. $18 each from Sephora (Alex, Josh, Nick and Mark) or Ulta (Mark, Nick, Chuck, Ben, Josh, Andy, Chris).

(This was sent for review.)