Category: Bésame

Giveaway of Bésame lip color sets with gloss48

Cold Cream 'n' Roses8 Comments
The Style Page is delighted to partner with gloss48 on a giveaway of Bésame lip color sets for three lucky winners. Makeup-wise, there’s nothing as glamorous as opaque lipstick with a creamy to demi-matte finish. And then there’s Bésame’s vintage-inspired packaging: Bésame founder/CEO Gabriela Hernandez has had the distinction of having her products featured on Mad Men and the Oscar award winning film The Artist.

The prizes are:

Bésame Cherry Red Lipstick mini + Crème Rouge
Bésame Voluptuous lip color set in Champagne
Voluptuous lip color set in Rose

Enter via Rafflecopter:
a Rafflecopter giveaway//d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.jsAnd don’t forget to take advantage of our exclusive discount with gloss48!

Bésame Voluptuous Lipstick

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Bésame described its Enchanting Lipstick as “absolutely the perfect lipstick.” I’m not readily given to superlatives, but Bésame (Spanish for “kiss me”) Enchanting Lipstick certainly is one of my favorite full-coverage lipsticks, along with MAC Satin and Lustre lipsticks and American Beauty Enduring Beauty™ Longwear Lipcolor. All three have the not too matte, not too creamy finish that I seek in a lipstick. In addition, I loved the retro look of the goldtone metal tube.

Lately, Bésame founder and owner Gabriela Hernandez has been re-designing her brand. The first product from the re-launch of Bésame is the Voluptuous Lip Color Set. The set consists of a full-size lipstick (Enchanting Lipstick is a mini-size) with a “fishtail” tip, a matching lip liner, and a lip brush.


Voluptuous Lip Color Set in Red Velvet

I received the Voluptuous Lip Color Set in Red Velvet. It is also available in Rapture Rose and Champagne. I chose Red Velvet because red lips are Gabriela’s signature: she’s her own best advertisement for the retro glamour of Bésame.


Gabriela Hernandez, founder, Bésame Cosmetics

On my lips, at least, the Voluptuous lipstick set very quickly and felt drying. I wrote to Gabriela and told her I still prefer the Enchanting lipstick. She was surprised, as Voluptuous lipstick was supposed to be more emollient than the Enchanting lipstick. In both Voluptuous and Enchanting lipsticks, clay is used to makes the color stick and lock on color to your lips.

Good news: Gabriela also told me that a new Classic lipstick will be released in the fall with the Enchanting lipstick formula and a full size chisel tip. I prefer the chisel tip to the fishtail tip, as the chisel tip contours to the lips. Other new Bésame products will be launched this fall.

A lousy mascara, a so-so mascara, and a great mascara

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Bésame is a boutique cosmetics line that replicates vintage cosmetic containers from the 30s and 40s – its reproductions are more authentic than Body & Soul, another cosmetics line that strives for vintage appeal. I’ve had good things to say about Bésame’s Enchanting Lipstick, but I can’t say the same for its Sculpture Lash Mascara in Black, a recent addition to its line (Bésame has also added Enriched Lip Glaze to its line). This mascara doesn’t build any volume and it smears as well. This mascara is not worth the $26.00 price charged for a single tube.

Curiously, the Bésame Sculpture Lash Mascara in Plum doesn’t smear, but like the one in Black, it doesn’t build up volume.

The find is L’Oreal HIP’s High Drama Volumizing Mascara in Ultimate Bronze Black, part of its limited edition collection in orangey shades. It really makes eyelashes appear thick, and doesn’t smear. At $9.99 a tube, it’s a great mascara at a much more comfortable price point than Bésame’s Sculpture Lash Mascara.

Lip tips

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

After posting Great drugstore finds, I realized that I needed to revise my advice on lips on The Style Page website.

Concerning lipliner that it is not obvious, I had written:

  • Another solution is to line the lips using a lip brush with the color you intend to apply: this is especially useful for applying highly pigmented matte lipsticks. [This advice originally came from Bobbi Brown]

  • ArtDeco, a cosmetics company from Germany, offers a Color & Contour Lip Duo, which features lipstick at one end and contour at the other end for lining the tips. This is a highly pigmented lip color, so blending is still necessary.

Now I think that both techniques result in an overly obvious line, which is why I now prefer clear lipliners or lipliners that perfectly match the color of one’s lips (which is why MAC’s Lip Pencil in Spice has been so popular).

I’ve since discovered that companies other than Revlon and Paula’s Choice offer clear lipliners, but at a higher price: DuWop Reverse Lip Liner and CARGO The Reverse Lipliner.

Living Beauty by Bobbi Brown

as seen in the March 15, 2007 edition of USA Today.

Lastly, the March issue of InStyle featured an excerpt from Bobbi Brown’s latest book Living Beauty. Bobbi Brown wrote that the most flattering lip color is two shades darker than the natural color of your lips. I can vouch for her advice, after a lot of experimentation (and a lot of money spent!). One also has to take her complexion, hair color, and clothes in account when selecting lip color.

I’m light to medium in complexion, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. While I had been classified as a “Winter” (using the seasonal color typing that was so popular in the 80s), I tend to favor rich warm colors over cool colors. Some of my favorite lipsticks are Bourbon from last year’s limited edition Catherine Deneuve color collection from MAC and Bésame’s Enchanting Lipstick in Chocolate Kiss, particularly when wearing brown. In fact, I favor lip colors that are “ambiguous,” that is, not too cool, not too warm.

Another tip is to apply lip color just slightly inside your mouth (I would name the source of this tip if I could recall it) so that there won’t be any apparent demarcation lines; also, this application suggests fuller lips.