Holika Holika Heartful Glossy Lipstick

These Holika Holika Heartful Glossy Lipsticks are my first Korean lipsticks and I was pretty excited to try them! Sure, I've had the SkinFood Fresh Fruit Lip & Cheek for a few years now, but I use them exclusively for my cheeks so they don't count :P Actually, in my experience, pretty much anything that says for lips and cheeks are almost always better on the cheeks than on the lips, especially if you have perpetually dry lips like me. Some of my favorites include Stila Convertible Color (just got 4 new colors, will review later ^.^) and Canmake Whip Mousse Lips.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

There are actually 3 different lines of these lipsticks: Heartful Moisture, Heartful Glossy, with Heartful Silky being the newest. I've read that the Heartful Moisture lipsticks are pretty opaque and provide moderate to full coverage, whereas the Heartful Glossy are sheerer with a glossy finish (my kind of lipsticks!), and...I'm not so sure what the Heartful Silky are all about LOL!

Within the Heartful Glossy line, there are 7 colors available, but I only picked 6. The first color, 01 Honey Beige looks too beige/nude/brown so I skipped it, only getting 02 PK122 Humming Pink, CR302 Blushing Peach, 04 PK123 Pink Bonbon, 05 CR303 Forever Coral, 06 RD303 Coco Red, and 07 PK124 Smoky Pink.

These lipsticks are super affordable and I got mine for about $5.85 a piece inclusive of shipping from South Korea. Each of the Heartful lipstick line comes in different looking metal packaging. The Heartful Glossy ones have shiny metal twist up tubes with brushed chrome swirls on the caps. Can you guess the reason for their "heartful" names? Heart-shaped lipsticks? Sold. How adorable is that? Worry not, the shape actually doesn't make application any awkward.

These lipsticks are scented with a mild fruity candy scent but have no taste. And finish wise they're a bit inconsistent. Okay, make that totally inconsistent. Among the 6 lipsticks I have, one is completely opaque (07 PK124 Smoky Pink), two are semi opaque (02 PK122 Humming Pink and 05 CR303 Forever Coral), two are semi translucent (my favorites 03 CR302 Blushing Peach and 04 PK123 Pink Bonbon), and one is completely translucent (my most favorite 06 RD303 Coco Red). 

Of course, their formula and texture feel totally different depends on the finish. The opaque and semi opaque ones are thicker, go on drier, not as smooth and moisturizing, and they leave only a tiny bit of a sheen. The semi translucent and the translucent ones are much softer, smoother, slightly more moisturizing, and has significantly more shine. So like Lipstick Queen Chinatown Glossy Pencil, I wouldn't call these "glossy" lipsticks either. I tend to save the "gloss" for actually glossy lipsticks like the recent Stila Color Balm Lipstick and most Japanese lipsticks, Lavshuca, Paul & Joe (the sheer ones), and Coffret D'Or to name a few. 

So in conclusion, these are by no means the best or worse among lipsticks, but for $5.85 the semi translucent and translucent ones are pretty nice! As with the Lipstick Queen Chinatown pencils, I did try to mix the different finishes in hopes of making the semi opaques and the opaque more wearable. And while they did become more wearable, to my surprise they actually make the translucent and semi translucents more opaque. Whereas with the Chinatown pencils it was the opposite, as in the translucent pencils transformed the semi opaque one and make it more translucent. 

- 02 PK122 Humming Pink: a semi opaque shell pink that leans cool with super fine scattered shimmers that don't show. While it swatched pretty enough, together the opacity and the cool-leaning pink make terrible combination on my lips, totally clashing with my warm skin tone. I put it on and looked like a ganguro wannabe T.T And it barely leaves a sheen. Boo. Hiss.

- 03 CR302 Blushing Peach: looks orange but is not orange at all but is instead a semi translucent and shimmer free peach with coral undertone that leaves a nice shine. The color is actually a dead-ringer for Canmake Cream Cheek Clear Series CL05, only for the lips. It's about the same sheerness as the CL05 too, only I want more color on my cheeks and less on my lips, so I didn't like CL05 so much but likes this lippie much better ^.^

- 04 PK123 Pink Bonbon: another semi translucent and shimmer free hot pink that leaves a lovely shine just like the Blushing Peach above. I know it doesn't look very "hot" in the swatch picture, but it's a whole lot brighter on my lips. Thankfully, the translucency makes this hot pink wearable for me. In fact, it's my second favorite in batch of 6 along with Blushing Peach!

From left to right: 02 PK122 Humming Pink, CR302 Blushing Peach, and 04 PK123 Pink Bonbon.

- 05 CR303 Forever Coral: semi opaque bright pinky coral with fine scattered shimmers that don't show. While this color sounds pretty and looks pretty in the swatch picture, the milkiness turns it into a freakin' neon coral on my lips! What the...? The worst part is that mixing this color with the translucent Coco Red below didn't help at all. It just turns into a bright neon reddish coral. Argh!!! Like Humming Pink it barely leaves a sheen.

- 06 RD303 Coco Red: a translucent and shimmer free blue based red and my favorite color of the bunch! You can actually see the translucency from the below product picture. It also leaves a very nice shine on my lips. Love love love this color!

- 07 PK124 Smoky Pink: this is an opaque cool rose with silvery shimmers. Like Humming Pink and Forever Coral above it barely leaves a sheen, if at all, since unlike those two this one's totally opaque. It actually applies a pinky lilac on my lips and the opacity just makes it so very...wrong T.T That said, it mixes well with the translucent Coco Red above to become a very pretty medium rose, still with lilac undertone. 

From left to right: 05 CR303 Forever Coral, 06 RD303 Coco Red, and 07 PK124 Smoky Pink.