Catrice: Absolut Moisture Lipstick Review

If you didn’t know already, Catrice is actually a sister brand of Essence from Germany. While Essence, through its style of packaging and pricing, is targeted towards teenagers and young adults (Oops, I am neither but I still think Essence is cool!), Catrice is supposed to appeal more to the older set, errr, yes, myself included. Its prices are slightly higher than those of Essence, but I'm talking about a difference of only about €0.50 to €1.00.

Truthfully, I used to think that Catrice was too staid, too ‘old’ (I’m such a hypocrite, aren’t I?). The packaging was nothing spectacular and it seemed that there were always the same old products on the shelves all the time. It was so ‘constant’ that I eventually stopped looking at their shelves!

Well, I take my words back. Catrice seems to be having an image revamp with restyled packaging and has been releasing cool limited edition collections lately. I can’t say though that these limited edition collections are released as frequently as those of Essence. I mean, Essence has been releasing ‘Trend Collections’, ie limited edition theme-based collections at an obsessive rate in recent months and I do find it hard to keep up.

But I digress.

Catrice. I’m here to talk about Catrice today. Just a few months ago, they overhauled their nail polish collection – changed the packaging (the bottles now resemble those of GOSH) – which now consists of an impressive permanent range of 32 colours. Moreover, at the start of spring, they released a makeup collection with lots of pastel shades. Not too long ago, they came up with a collection called Oceana which also had two matte nail polish colours in packaging with very cool and younger-looking designs. Catrice seems to be more lively now.

Anyway, I really just want to show you a lipstick that I have from Catrice. As far as I know, it’s not a revamped product. Catrice calls it the Absolut Moisture Lipstick. Of all their non-revamped products, I thought this lipstick looked the least staid. The casing is pretty heavy compared to those of lipsticks from other brands. Well, I would actually go as far as to call it stylish and sturdy.

This is the only Catrice lipstick I have and the shade is 070 Luxury Red. It’s pin-up girl red and it’s not for the faint-hearted. I am faint-hearted and would just apply a thin layer but, just for you, I’ve piled on this colour to show how rrrrrred it is. Personally, I didn’t think it was that absolutely moisturising, so I would recommend using a lip balm as a base. In my photo, I applied this colour over bare lips and nothing else.

If you’d like to see its list of ingredients, it is available on the Catrice website. This lipstick does contain paraffin and propylparaben but it also has jojoba seed oil and shea butter, if it makes you feel any better.

It's not a perfect lipstick, but I ain't complaining. Why? Because I do love the red and it costs only €2.99!