Muselle Nocturnal Lipstick F

From PJ's blog I'd been seeing occasional posts on the Pola brand Muselle Nocturnal, and while a few of their eye shadow palettes looked interesting, I mostly refrained. It wasn't until I spotted their lip gloss on Anna's Instagram feed that I finally got curious enough to make a purchase. Good thing they only have two lines of lipsticks, the Lipstick R and these Lipstick F, each with only five colors available.

Here are four of the Lipstick F's in the colors OR01 Jam & Marmalade, PI01 Strawberry Rose, RE01 Cranberry Sorbet, and RO01 Cassis Julep.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

These tiny tubes annoyed me at first. I thought I had fallen for another Opera stunt, very little product for a very big price. After all, these Lipstick F's ran 3,500yen a piece with tax, the same price as a Lunasol lipstick, both being department store brands. Then one peek at the product content and my annoyance was gone and I was rather impressed: these tiny round metal tubes contain 3.6g of product! For comparison, Suqqu Extra Glow Lipstick has 3.7g, and Creamy Glow/Moist and Lunasol both have 3.8g.

And when I say tiny, I truly mean tiny. These tubes are markedly smaller than Suqqu and are probably half the size of Lunasol. They're *real* metal tubes too, just like the black-lacquered Bright Ups and Creamy Glow/Moists, and yet they cost almost 1,000yen less (with tax) than the plastic, and bulkier, Extra Glows!

Now the real test: the formula. The fantastic news is that the formula is divine. It's one of the best I've tried, a thicker jelly that's buttery soft and smooth, wonderfully moisturizing, with a glossy shine. This is pretty much a jelly lip gloss in a stick, all without the sticky, wet, and melty mess that weaned me off of glosses for good, the very reasons I switched to lipstick exclusively.


The less great news is that there's hardly any color. All four I own are shimmer-free and transparent, awesome, but other than RE01 Cranberry Sorbet and RO01 Cassis Julep, the other two are barely tinted lip treatments/balms, very expensive ones at that. If you're curious and want to try one, depends on whether you prefer red or pink make it RE01 or RO01, but otherwise you're better off with an actual lip treatment/balm that's priced accordingly.

- OR01 Jam & Marmalade: muted peachy-coral.

- PI01 Strawberry Rose: pastel pink that barely shows up, pretty much a balm with a faint pink tint. Oh well. At least I love the formula.

- RE01 Cranberry Sorbet: warm red, the most pigmented of the bunch but is still pretty sheer by most standards. That said, it shows up decently well on my lips. If you're a fan of sheer reds, this is for you.

- RO01 Cassis Julep: hot pink. Despite the super sheer swatch, this color shows up decently well on my lips also. If you prefer sheer pink instead of sheer reds, go for this color instead.

From left to right: OR01 Jam & Marmalade, PI01 Strawberry Rose, RE01 Cranberry Sorbet, and RO01 Cassis Julep.