An Ingredients Analysis of Colour Changing Lipsticks, Lipglosses, Lipbalms, and Blushes

Ever since Smashbox put out its O-Glow blushes and lipglosses, Dior put out its Dior Lip Glow, and Sephora put out its Color Reveal Lip Balm, it seems like colour-changing lipglosses have been exploding over the blogosphere. There are so many breathless reviews on how it's changing into the "perfect shade of pink", or how it "reacts with the skin's pH" to give you a customized shade, and there are also equally many reviews disliking the pepto bismo pink it changes into on them. And, there are (of course) a lot of comparison swatches between the various types of colour-changing glosses.

I've had a few of these - you can see one that I reviewed here. Back then, I had written that I was suspicious of all those lipglosses claiming to know my body chemistry and pH, and I had written, "in my experience these turn into some generic shade of super-bright pink." So, since all the hype has been going on, I thought I'd do a little bit of the ingredients-analysing that you guys all know and love, and explain just how it is that these glosses/lipsticks/lipbalms/blushes do their work!

With these products, you'll always have a PH-relevant/skin-chemistry-relevant/hocus-pocus-magic-quality relevant shade!

Of course, as the nice little graphic summary I did above shows, we know that these types of lipglosses, lipsticks, and lipbalms have been around for quite awhile. In fact, there are so many of them - in addition to the Dior, Smashbox, and Sephora versions, Mark by Avon, Duwop, Jemma Kidd, and NYX Cosmetics have all jumped on the bandwagon at some point in time. And it's not just US brands that are donig it - Essence Cosmetics and Barry M from Europe have done it too. And even outside the West, other brands have done it - there's Lipice in Asia, and even a strange Morrocan Hare brand from (where else) Morroco! And it's not just lipgloss or lipstick! Cheek products have also been given the special treatment, with Stila, Smashbox and Givenchy all have blush versions to give you that pH-adjusted cheek colour.

So yes, we know everyone loves a colour-changing lipstick/balm/gloss/blush. And who can blame us for loving it? The novelty of seeing the colour change on your lips and cheeks is quite something, I'll admit. The thing is, are they really all that different from one another? How on earth are they even changing colour in the first place? You know that if this post involves some ingredients analysis, there's no better place to start than the ingredients list!

So, for this post, I'm going to look at as many ingredient lists of such colour changing products that I can dig up, including lipbalms, glosses, and lipsticks, and blushes, and see what we can learn from there! In true geek style, there are 10 of them (yes, TEN!), so buckle up!

OPI Just Spotted the Lizard/Chanel Peridot Dupe: Sephora Diving in Malaysia

It all started when Chanel released Peridot sometime at the end of last year. That immediately sparked the frenzy of nail polish aficianados everywhere, and people were going crazy paying crazy prices for it on Ebay. Then, as inevitably happens, dupes were found, such as Sephora's Diving in Malaysia, thus releasing some of the crazy, and the nail polish world moved on to other colours, and newer seasons.

Fast forward to now. OPI is going to release Just Spotted the Lizard with its Spiderman collection, and it's apparently a dupe for Chanel Peridot, too. So now, we have three polishes that more or less are perfect dupes of each other - Chanel Peridot, OPI Just Spotte the Lizard, and Sephora Diving in Malaysia.



The one I have is, naturally, the cheapest of the lot, but unfortunately also the smallest. Sephora's Diving in Malaysia is just S$9 at our local Sephora, but unfortunately you also only get a teeny 5ml of nail polish (OPI bottles are 15ml for comparison). I guess given that I'd never ever use up even half of 5ml of nail polish from that bottle, it's a good idea for me to pay less for less, I suppose. I do have this horrible tendency to wear each colour I have once or twice before chucking it to one side...

Anyway, I don't need to go into the gorgeous colour that is Chanel Peridot/OPI Just Spotted the Lizard/Sephora Diving in Malaysia. It's a yellow-gold frosty polish, that has a very pretty duochrome finish that's hard to describe. Usually it looks green at the edges, but in the bottle (and on occasion, the nails), you see hints of blue and purple too. Very pretty, indeed. No wonder it took the world by storm.



I wasn't all that keen on this polish at first, but I fell in love with it once it was applied. It's a gorgeously neutral shade that would look great on both warm and cool skintones, and the greenish duochrome at the sides gives it a lot more interest than your typical neutral yellow gold shade. It's a perfect neutral with a kick!

I also really liked the application of Sephora Diving in Malaysia. It applied quite nicely and was opaque in two coats, which is what you see on my nails. The only drawback was that due to the small size of the bottle, the cap and the brush to apply the nail polish were also rather tiny. Fortunately, it was still easy to apply, and I also like the curved brush edges, which fit to the shape of my nail quite nicely.



This is the first time I've tried a Sephora brand polish. Usually I just ignore them as the colours aren't all that interesting, but I specifically bought Diving in Malaysia because of it's dupe status. If all Sephora polishes were like this, I think they're actually not too bad. If there are any unique colours in the range, I'd consider them.



So, do you need this? Well, if you already have Chanel Peridot, or OPI Just Spotted the Lizard, then you probably don't. But if you don't, and you want a cheap alternative (with a corresponding tiny amount), then this is the perfect solution.