Inglot AMC Lip Pencil 35

When I went to Inglot this wasn't on the wall of lip stuff. As I was trying the AMC Lip Glosses on, I had the sudden inspiration to try them on over black. I searched the wall for a black lip color, but couldn't find one. Good thing I asked the saleswoman! She helped me find what is, hands down, my new favorite black lip color.

Inglot's lip pencils are nice thick pencils meant to give all over color to your lips. Number 35 is a beautiful matte black. In fact, it's hands down one of the best black lipsticks I've ever tried.

The fact about black lips is that they can be really hard to manage. They bleed and transfer like no other color. The worst part is when they inevitably seem to wear away RIGHT in the middle of your mouth so that there's a little bit of visible pink in between your lips. With this pencil, though? Not a problem.

When I first pressed my lips to the back of my hand: NOTHING. Nada. So a pressed my lips against my hand as hard as I could and sucked a little (that sounds so bizarre) and that was what I got. That barely visible trace of black that I had to circle.

Even with a heavy application of gloss:

It's a lot more, but honestly, that's not bad at all. When I pulled my lips away they were still fully colored even after 8 hours of wearing it, no touch ups and some majorly weird back-of-the-hand-sucking (as described above).

There are some things you should know about this, though. It's more drying for me than the average matte. You're going to want to put a gloss or balm or something either over or underneath, because after application even my lips (which always seem to feel naturally moist and comfortable) felt Sahara dry. This pencil is also far from creamy. There was a bit of tugging on application.

In real life the dryness isn't as visible as it is in the photo. The color (a flat, simple black) makes everything appear fine and smooth in person. It does, however, feel as dry as it looks. Go with a primer or balm underneath, you'll be glad you did.

Also, as I mentioned at the beginning of the review, this wasn't with the other lip stuff. When I asked the Sales Associate if Inglot had black lip color, she pulled out a little display of four-ish different blacks and showed them all to me. Let me just say, I love when a classy place has some great alternative options for its customers. MAC has its Black and Blue Lipmix, but only in Pro stores, which is hellishly inconvenient for its more dramatic-minded consumer fanbase. In fact, the saleswoman had some great suggestions for pigments and things that I could mix into their black gloss to make some really pretty blues, which was refreshing and exciting for me.

The Good:

• Incredibly long wear (unless you eat oily food). No visible fading after eight full hours. It may have gone longer if I hadn't decided to take it off. Gloss lessens the wear a bit, but it still goes strong for about 6 hours, which is nothing to sneeze at.
• Unscented. No scent whatsoever. This is great news for those who are sensitive to these things.
• Rich, dark, long lasting color.
• Doesn't transfer and doesn't do that weird thing black lipsticks do where they just seem to wear away in between your lips. Ick.

The Bad:

• Drying.
• Tugs at lips a bit.

The Neutral:

• This is in pencil form!

Overall, if you like wearing black lips, I definitely think this is worth a try for you. Any time I've tried black lip color in the past, I've had to check up on it every half-hour or so to make sure it wasn't doing something crazy that I didn't want it to do, but this product really rules all of that out. What might be a fatal flaw for some people, though, would be the dryness. My lips were comfortable enough with just this on for eight hours, but for someone with naturally dry lips? Balm/gloss would probably be a must and that may compromise the wear and the gorgeous matte finish.

This was $11.00 in the Inglot store, though I can't find it in their online shop. They do have other colors, though.