Make-up Review: Hera Rouge Holic Lipsticks

Oh boy, I'm so late with posting this review, considering I first got to try Hera's Rouge Holic range in March 2015. However, Rouge Holic is a stable range of lipsticks available in Korea and online stores until today, so I believe even a review this delayed will still be helpful to those who don't mind splurging 35 - 40 USD on a lipstick.

Last March, InStyle Korea celebrated their 12th anniversary and cooperated with Hera to present the readers with a set of 3 miniature lipsticks: specially designed "InStyle Red", and usual shades Supreme Pink, and Cherish Coral. It was a real battle to get two issues for Anette and me, in the end we had to puppy eye our colleagues to order online for us under two separate accounts, because everything was sold out immediatelly in bookstores.

InStyle Red

Supreme Pink

Cherish Coral

Packaging

While the paper box for the miniature set was really cute, obviously the lipstick packaging wasn't as nice as that of full size versions. Unless there is a special edition, Hera opts for simple, elegant designs appealing mostly to the 30+ demographic (not surprising considering the price of the lipsticks).

Price

This is really simple. Either you are willing to pay 30+ USD for a lipstick or not. If you are, then I would say the quality of the lipsticks I tried is superior to that of European brands with comparable prices I have bought previously (YSL Rouge Volupté, Lancome, Sisley).

Review

Color of InStyle Red is a pinkish shade of red, bright pink for Supreme Pink and neutral for Cherish Coral (it isn't really a coral shade in my opinion). My favorite shade is Cherish Coral, because I find it challenging to find nice nude-ish tones - bright pink and red are rather common shades so I didn't find them particularly special.

Supreme Pink

 

 Cherish Coral

InStyle Red

From left to right: Supreme Pink, Cherish Coral, InStyle Red

Texture of the lipsticks is very creamy and moisturizing and I feel like it is much more forgiving if your lips are a bit chapped compared to e.g. YSL's Rouge Volupté. It has a rather moist/buttery finish (nor sparkly and not really glossy - more like a lipbalm).

Endurance is therefore not that great and you need to reapply the lipstick after eating or drinking.

Overall, I would much rather buy a lipstick from Hera than high end European brands since I think the texture and moisturizing properties are great, which is more important for me than lasting power of the lipstick. I'd recommend Cherish Coral as a nice and lively neutral color for people who don't like bright lip colors, or you can always check out one of the other shades that are available in the Rouge Holic range. If you buy the lipstick in Hera store in Korea, you'll get a bunch of gifts with purchase too (Anette went later on to buy two full sized Cherish Corals and she got two skincare travel sets and two sets of lipstick samples, I'd estimate the value of the gift to be around 10 USD if bought somewhere like testerkorea - not bad).

Yours truly

Vita