New In Town: Almay Smart Shade Butter Kiss Lipsticks [ Nude -Light Medium, Berry - Medium] and a Comparison with a Revlon Lip Butter..

Holidays are here... there is that excitement in the air, the feel of things-to-do and shopping lists hanging all around... and what best way for a makeup lover to relax and enjoy than to get some new lipstick releases in the kitty! 
1st we'd Revlon come in with their Ultra HD lipsticks, which I'm still not sure about buying.. I so hate the packaging! Then came Almay - an unusual entrant in the lipstick arena, with their dupe-for-lip-butters Butter Kiss lipsticks. What next? Give me more.. Come on, Annabelle/Essence, bring out some liquid lipsticks.. And where is the matte Apocalips from Rimmel?
I am greedy. I know.
I have no idea why Almay decided to be a Color-based Discriminator with their new lipsticks. I mean, when a brand that has just 1 lipbalm comes out with a lipstick, its not fair to market it as something for Light, Light-to-medium, Medium skin tones right? I mean, did they expect Olive toned people like me or the darker skinned beauties to just ignore this? Come on Almay. Be generous. Whats holiday season about, if not for generosity and goodwill? Show us darker skinned ladies some love!


Anyway I decided to brave it all, and get 2 shades - a nude from their Light Medium range and a berry from their Medium range. And thats another thing. They have made a matrix - 4 color groups [Berry, Pink, Nude, Red] and 3 skin shades [Light, Light Medium, Medium]. This is supposed to be Smart Shade, so if you're light skinned and you like Berry shade, pick up Column no 1, Row no 1 and you're done. Smart right? Well, not really since thats not how people work!
The price was almost the same as Revlon - around $10.5 CAD and there was a coupon for a $1 off in the Shoppers Drug mart I went to.

The design is pretty similar to Revlon lip butters. Scroll down to see a comparison...

Nude shade on the Left, Berry shade on the Right

I like the packaging. I really do. Easy to select, easy to maintain and pretty decent all in all.
I wish Almay had taken some efforts in naming these lipsticks, cos calling them Nude-Ligh-Medium is weird. Anyway, the Nude one is my favorite. It glides very well, applies the color evenly and the pigmentation is also pretty good. 
Couldnt like the berry shade - you can see the patchy application on the swatch. The same happens on lips. It is also not as pigmented as the Nude one. In the pics below, you can see that it does not cover my lip's pigmentation very well.

Nude color - you can see that it covers the pigmentation on lips pretty well. A nice pinkish nude shade-perfect for my skin tone!

In spite of many many swipes, the color still didnt have enough pigmentation to cover my lips very evenly.

This color is a fail for me - I didnt get the color in the tube :(

Overall:  Its early to judge the range as I liked one and I didnt like the other. I don't have strong feelings either way but I found the nude one pretty comfortable and hydrating enough. I am planning to return the Berry shade and pick up another shade, so may be I will have a better idea by then. 

Similar packaging - Revlon has colorful plastic outer casing, while Almay just swapped it for inner color casing.

Revlon Berry Smoothie on the left, Almay Berry shade on the right - the shades are similar, but you can see that Revlon is much more creamier and pigmented than the Almay one.

 

Revlon Berry Smoothie - check out the creaminess and pigmentation, this is not the best lip butter though as there is some patchiness cos of all the shimmer.

Revlon Lip Butters Vs Almay Butter Kiss - Sorry Almay, Revlon wins the round for the variety in shade selection, the creaminess and the lack of color based discrimination! 
I am planning to do a review of the 3 Lip butter/Butter lipsticks I have - Revlon Vs Almay Vs NYX... expect something soon :)