Impulse Cosmetics Lipstick - Medusa Swatches & Review

Purchased by me

Hey lovelies,

Continuing my indie lippy kick, I have a real beauty from Impulse Cosmetics to show you today. I'd had several of their items favourited on Etsy for awhile, but seeing Mimi at Makeupwithdrawal swatch several of their lippies made me drop everything and place an order. I chose Medusa and a few eyeshadow samples (to be reviewed later) and eagerly awaited my new pretties. I didn't have to wait long, shipping took a bit under two weeks from the USA to NZ.

The packaging is pretty cute! The lipstick comes in a twist up lip balm style tube - and you'll be pleased to know that it twists up and down :D Why am I mentioning this? Well, a few indie companies use long thin lip balm tubes which don't like twisting back down in the slightest. I'll be reviewing one of those companies very soon. Back to this lippy - the printed label is gorgeous. I love the colours.

I'd prefer it if these came in traditional lipstick packaging, but these are still pretty easy to use. I used a lip brush to outline my lips and partially fill them in, then applied straight from the tube. 

Medusa is a stunning wine-burgundy with a matte finish. It applies with a little sheen initially, but settles down to a matte finish pretty quickly. I found the colour pay off to be really good.

Where Medusa really shone for me was the wear time. As I've mentioned before, any red lippy with a bit of sheen, anything darker and even some dark fuchsias feather like a mofo on me unless I use lipliner (and sometimes even that's not enough!). I expected Medusa to be the same, but for the sake of a wear test I skipped lipliner and prepared myself to be constantly running my fingers around my lips to clean up feathering.

But... It. Did. Not. Budge.

Seriously. 5 hours and no feathering in sight. This is completely unheard of for me. I have other burgundy shades (MAC Deeply Adored, Jordana Matte Eggplant, Wet n Wild Cherry Bomb, MAC Diva) and they all feather on me consistently but Medusa wasn't having any of that. It just sat there looking pretty.

Now, I mentioned the 5 hour wear time. It wore perfectly for 2 and a half hours, and then I started to notice it feeling mildly drying. Around the four hour mark Medusa started to settle into some of my deeper liplines, but despite this, the colour was still opaque and looked even. It finally wore away after 5 hours when Mike made us delicious pizza for dinner, OM NOM NOM.

I'm seriously impressed with Medusa. I actually ordered another 10 lippies, this time in sample jars, before I'd tried Medusa and was starting to worry - what if I didn't like the formula? Did I just waste my money? - but now I'm even more excited for them to arrive :D

What I liked:

• Outstanding colour pay off
• Doesn't feather or bleed
• Great wear time - 5 hours +

What I didn't like:

• Somewhat drying
• I'd prefer a traditional lipstick over the lip balm style tube

Where to buy:

• Impulse Cosmetics

Have you tried any lipsticks from this brand?

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Lani