cream puff vs luxe cream

The era of the liquid lipstick is amongst us, and whilst high end ones are perhaps a better bet for a more indulgent product, I have two drugstore alternatives that might just sway you into saving a whole wad of cash.

The first is a MUA luxe velvet lip lacquer in the colour Halycon, a browny coral pink. The packaging is so beautiful with its frosted glass tube and gold accents- not at all a show of it's £3 price tag. The rival is the Collection cream puff in the shade---

Both products are 'good' liquid lipsticks to try out. As you can tell from the swatches below the MUA is way more opaque than the Collection alternative, but it definitely is up to you whether that is the formula you like. Personally I love the collection one as it's opaque enough to resemble a glossy lipstick but not to thick that it feels heavy on the lips, which the MUA tends to feel like at first. 

But on the other hand, the luxe lip lacquer is more pigmented so one swipe of the applicator applies way more product than the Collection cream puff does- not sure if its possibly because I picked up a half finished tube by accident, because I find that I'm almost finished the tube within a few uses, possibly?

The shade offering is really nice on the MUA front and they have a more matte finish to the Collection cream puffs so if you prefer a more glossier finish try out the cream puff over the luxe lip lacquer. I do recommend to swatch the lip creams on your lips or thoroughly in different lights because on first swatch 'Halycon' seemed like the perfect shade that I love to go for, but on second thoughts it looked almost neon pink against my pale olive skin tone- so definitely do your research.

Overall due to the colour mishap the luxe lip lacquer is pushed to the back of my drawers, although I am curious to see if I can do some mixing to create a better colour out of it. But without the colour fiasco I do like the formula and opaque-ness to it- worth the £3 for sure. On the Collection front I do love the slightly less thick formula and the pinky colours in the range but if all tubes work out to have a minimal amount of product in it then I don't think I'd repurchase. If you have the cream puff was this an issue for you?