TonyMoly Delight Tony Tint

One of the things I got into within these past few months were lip stains. No, they're not new and have been around for quite a while now. However, nothing sparks a mass craze for them like a popular idol TV show. I'm talking about the South Korean remake of Hana Yori Dango. You see, in that show the actress Koo Hye-Sun playing Geum Jan-di sported stained lips and, well, lip stains became the thing in South Korea, with the most popular of them all being these TonyMoly Delight Tony Tint, allegedly. So of course I have to give them a try ^.^

There are 3 colors available, 1 Cherry Pink, 2 Red, and 3 Orange Chacha and I have all three. They're super affordable, as in I paid all of $3 a pop! No, really.

TonyMoly Delight Tony Tint 1 Cherry Pink, 2 Red, 3 Orange Chacha. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

So the tubes are oddly shaped, with a heart-shaped cap. Also, it seems there has been a packaging revamp, because the label on my tube 1 Cherry Pink looks different than the other 2, but otherwise everything else is the same.

The applicator is the good ol' fuzzy doe foot. The stain itself is a gel formula, meaning it's thicker and doesn't run, which is great because you can spread without any fear of it bleeding into lip lines, as a runny watery formula would. And holy crap I think I see why this stuff's popular: it's damn pigmented and it stains the daylights out of my lips (and the back of my hands)! See for yourself the swatches below. It takes about a minute to set, which was basically from the time when I made the swatches, took a few snap shots, then blended them to into circles below.

These are scented with a fruity fragrance. Being stains, they're not moisturizing at all by themselves despite having rose hip oil, jojoba oil, and argan oil as parts of the main ingredients. So I do recommend layering with balm or gloss if you have perpetually dry lips like me.

The staying power is excellent! However, there's a catch - layering these on top of lip balm will shorten their stay time, probably because the pigment can't really "grip" onto a slippery coating of emollience, wax or oil. So for longer lasting stains, I would recommend dabbing (dabs, folks, you don't need a lot at all!) onto bare lips first, let set, then layer with lip balm or gloss for moisture. When I tested these on the back of my hands, I had applied hand cream prior, but still they stained like mad. I rubbed and rubbed under running water and they faded may be a tiny little bit. Several hours later they were still going strong after my night shower, lasting until the afternoon the next day! Eeps!!! O.O

Conclusion? The best $3 ever spent. Period. Impressed is an understatement. If they weren't in a giant 9mL tubes, I'd probably get backups. Actually I just check and they're on sale for $2.49 a piece now. May be I will get backup after all ^.^ Why the hell not, right?

- 1 Cherry Pink: swatches a blue based red but sets to a pigmented deep medium pink.