Lunasol Seamless Matte Lips

Lunasol introduced these new Seamless Matte Lips in the spring of 2020. They were part of the sheer mattes trend and the promotional photos intrigued me enough to pick up several to try: 01 Opulent Red, 03 Fresh Raspberry, 04 Mandarin Delight, 05 Wondering Berry, and EX01 Darling Violet.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Let's talk about the tubes: they're shiny gold, shorter, and chunkier. I don't like this change, but fine, I didn't buy these lippies for their tubes. They're more expensive than the discontinued Lunasol lippies too (Full Glamour Lips, Airy Glow Lips, etc.) at 4,180yen a piece, versus the 3,000yen plus tax before. 

 

The formula is amazing, as expected of Lunasol. Unscented, somewhat thick, and is more on the balmy side than buttery or jelly. Goes on super smooth, and is very moisturizing. Feels like wearing a high-end lip balm. Even leaves a sheen like a balm. So they're sheer, yes (hooray!), but matte they're not. Not at all. There are the two colors with shimmers even (03 Fresh Raspberry and EX01 Darling Violet) and these leaves a glossier sheen than the other non-shimmer colors. 

 

Color wise, they're hit and miss for me, also as expected of Lunasol. Ha. I love the formula and I had my eyes on another color--10 Brick, so I'll probably go back for just that but let's hope they'll release better colors in the future. The current color lineup is a bit lacking imho. 

- 01 Opulent Red: shimmer-free, blue-based reddish pink, both on the back of my hand as well as on my lips, so not really red. The pink is pretty apparent in the angled swatch photo below. 

- 03 Fresh Raspberry: erhhh where are they getting these names? This is not a raspberry at all but is rather a red-coral with gold shimmers.

- 04 Mandarin Delight: looks pretty juicy orange in the photos due to the natural light's yellow wash but it's really apricot in the tube and is apricot on me. Whatever. I'm just glad it didn't turn pumpkin orange. Actually, this layers nicely over 01 Opulent Red above for a gorgeous yellow base red.

- 05 Wondering Berry: I had high hopes for this one because the bullet looked a dark berry and all the promo photos showed dark berry. Nope. It applied a meh-berry and with way more violet than expected. Even weirder was that it just looked off on me. I can and do wear most berries, light or dark, and I have an arsenal of berry lippies to prove it. But not this one. No matter what I did, applying light-handed, applying heavy-handed, it just didn't look good. So I passed it on to mum-in-law who loves pinks, mauves, and berries, and it was a hit with her. Glad it found a loving home in the end.

- EX01 Darling Violet: hmm, the name was only half correct here. The bullet looked totally raspberry in the tube and it applied raspberry as well. However, there were violet shimmers that gave it a violet sheen. It was this sheen that I disagreed with as it pulled the color a bit too cool for my skin tone. I pass this one on as well and mum-in-law loved it.

From left to right: 01 Opulent Red, 03 Fresh Raspberry, 04 Mandarin Delight, 05 Wondering Berry, and EX01 Darling Violet.