Quest for Coral, the Sequel (and my first Korean makeup purchase)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a commission from purchases made through those links.
My original quest for a wearable, affordable, bright coral lip-something failed, and I was ready to admit defeat, though I had made some interesting discoveries along the way. Then I got so many helpful recommendations that I felt compelled to give it another go. In the end, I kind of (sort of) took a couple of the suggestions I got, and I am pleased with my success. I've compiled all the recommendations I got in the comments of the post, on Instagram, and on Tumblr, at the bottom of this post for any others who undertake a similar journey. Thanks, everyone!

That sounds a bit dramatic when we're talking about lipstick, but whatever.

I actually ended up buying two things that no one suggested, but they worked out very well. The first is a Wet N Wild MegaSlicks Balm Stain Moisturizing Lip Color (insert obligatory complaint about the long name here) in Coral of the Story. I bought this without very high expectations, but I needed a new tube of my favorite Wet N Wild eyeshadow primer, after the two other primers I had left proved practically useless, and CVS had a BOGO sale on WNW. So I grabbed this bright coral-pink crayon, which otherwise would have cost $3.

Wet N Wild MegaSlicks Balm Stain in Coral of the Story

This stuff is surprisingly great! It is indeed both moisturizing and a stain. It feels like a balm, is quite opaque, and yet isn't patchy or smeary like a lot of other corals. It's exactly the color I was looking for - a coral that's a bit closer to pink than orange or red. Victory on all counts. I can't really think of anything to complain about, and you know how much I like complaining.

Here it is on my lips. The color really brightens up my face. I forgot to take a full face shot, but I'll post one on Instagram soon and link it here. There's also an arm swatch later in the post, if you prefer that.

Lip swatch of Wet N Wild MegaSlicks Balm Stain in Coral of the Story

At the same time, I had my last round of Birchbox points to use up, and I decided to spend them on something weird and fun. I redeemed them for two things: an expensive lipstick that I will review soon, and Peripera Peri's Tint Water in Mandarin (#4, since I've seen multiple names for this shade out there). By buying this stuff, I was partially taking two suggestions I had been given when I wrote about my omgstruggles with coral before: to try mixing orange and pink lip products and to try Benefit Cha Cha Tint. Of course, the idea of mixing was to make do with things I already had, not to buy more shit, and Cha Cha Tint is already coral, not orange, so I pretty much violated the spirit of both suggestions. But they inspired me nonetheless.

I generally avoid buying beauty products on the basis of pretty packaging, and therefore I avoid photographing the packaging for the most part. But since I wanted this Tint Water anyway and I was photographing it anyway and it happens to be adorable in the typical Korean beauty fashion anyway . . . please enjoy this packaging photo:

Peripera Peri's Tint Water in Mandarin #4

Quest for Coral

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Settle in, because this is going to be an epic quest. Sometime in April, when I'd had about enough of the gloom, I decided I would declare this the Summer of Coral. It's kind of like the Summer of George, but on my face. I was going to find a bright coral lip product that I loved and wear the fuck out of it. I already owned some options, but none of them was quite right, so I started shopping. Here I've laid out all the lip products I now own that are coral or coral adjacent. There are some that turned out to be orange or orange-red, but if nothing else they provide a basis for comparison.

Here is the full array (lip swatches and more info for each below):

Left to right: Stila Lip Glaze in Melon, Revlon Moisture Stain in Cannes Crush, BareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Lipstick in Light It Up, Wet N Wild Silk Finish Lipstick in What's Up Doc?, Wet N Wild MegaLast Lipstick in Purty Persimmon, ULTA Automatic Lip Liner in Scarlet, Life's Entropy Lip Theory in Apoptosis, Life's Entropy Lip Theory in Recursion, L'Oreal Pop Balm in Caring Coral.

And here are swatches of all of them:

Swatches (left to right): Stila Lip Glaze in Melon, Revlon Moisture Stain in Cannes Crush, BareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Lipstick in Light It Up, Wet N Wild Silk Finish Lipstick in What's Up Doc?, Wet N Wild MegaLast Lipstick in Purty Persimmon, ULTA Automatic Lip Liner in Scarlet, Life's Entropy Lip Theory in Apoptosis, Life's Entropy Lip Theory in Recursion, L'Oreal Pop Balm in Caring Coral.

More below the cut, because I have a thousand photos and a million words to go.