The newly transformed Em Cosmetics, a company founded by the OG beauty influencer, Michelle Phan, only offers a mere portion of what it used to. Though the company was founded in 2013, and offered a wide range of products from foundations to eyeshadows and lip balms, Em’s website currently only sells a total of four products. Two liquid eyeliners, a liquid lipstick, and a pencil eyeliner.
Earlier this year Michelle Phan completely renovated the brand, changing its packaging, image, and products. None of the products currently sold on Em’s website are copies of old products from the brand. And, even though this might be an unpopular opinion, I was a pretty big fan of the original Em cosmetics. I really enjoyed some of the eye shadow palettes and concealer when I was first getting into makeup, especially since I idolized Michelle Phan.
Her revamping of the brand also coincides from her extremely long break from YouTube, the platform that made her famous. She was also notably absent on most other social media. Phan was, without a doubt, the biggest and most important “Beauty Guru” on YouTube before her leave of absence. Her videos were extremely popular, innovative, and a great way to market her fairly new brand to her audience.
But when she left a lot of fans, myself included, were left wondering for months where she’d gone and what she’d been doing. When she announced the rebirth of Em Cosmetics earlier this year, I was ecstatic. When it originally launched, however, Em Cosmetics only offered their Infinite Cloud Lip, a lightweight liquid lipstick formula in 8 shades, none of which I desperately needed in my collection. So, I didn’t end up purchasing anything directly from Em Cosmetics until last week, several months after it’s re-launch.
So, here’s my first impressions on the brand, packaging and formulas.
When my package did arrive (processing took four days and shipping took another week through FedEx), it was very cute. I’m totally into aesthetics and I really appreciate it when things I order online arrive almost like a present. The packaging of the box reflects the packaging of the products themselves, with a bold contrast between black and white, with accents of gold. The inner lid of the box is adorned with Phan’s signature farewell on YouTube, “Good luck,” which I thought was a very cute touch, especially to fans of the vlogger.
The packaging wasn’t very complicated beyond that, just some tissue paper. Nothing that I ordered was particularly fragile either, so not a ton of risk of an item shattering or being damaged in transit.
I ordered three products from Em. Two Infinite Cloud Lips and one Illustrative Eyeliner (they offer two varieties of this eyeliner).
Now, let me start by saying that half of the “First Impressions” in this title is technically a lie. In fact, one of these products I’ve been using since April.
I initially received the Illustrative Eyeliner in the Brush Tip from Ipsy in my April Glambag. I wasn’t very excited about it, especially because at that point I was basically married to my Maybelline gel eyeliner, but I decided to give it a go.
I usually don’t like liquid eyeliners. I’ve tried using them for years and years and I find most of the tips on them very hard to use, not flexible enough to really contour to my eye, or the ink dries out in the tip–even if I store them upside down in a cup–and I basically waste half of the product.
I’ve tried a ton of liquid eyeliners too. Kat Von D. Stila. You name it, I’ve tried it, and I’ve been disappointed by them all.
Until, this baby entered my life.
The Em Cosmetics, Illustrative Eyeliner with the brush tip. Cue angels singing, birds flying, the sun breaking through a cloud.
It’s the best black marker I’ve ever put on my eye. It’s amazing. I love it. I never even thought about really trying a brush tip eyeliner before this, but I’ll never go back. Above in the picture is actually my original eyeliner, which I’m still using, my new backup is in the box, where it will happily remain for the next month or so while I use up the rest of my first eyeliner.
This eyeliner, much like the Kat Von D liner, includes a shaker that keeps product moving throughout and that you can hear when you give it a shake. This means that fresh product is constantly moving around and keeping the liner from going dry.
The brush tip is a revelation. It bends to the curves of my eye but also is thin enough for a defined point at the end of my wing. I have honestly not used something that made winged eyeliner easier to apply, it’s like I was born doing a cat wing.
(Ignore the eyeshadow on my liner, this baby has been through a lot.)
I find this very easy to use, and the formula itself is great, totally rivaling Kat Von D or Stila. It’s extremely black, matte, and opaque. I don’t ever need to use two coats of this thing and it dries down quickly to the perfect matte finish. It doesn’t crack or fade throughout the day, nor does it wear off easily. If my eyes are particularly watery on a given day, my inner corner will start to bleed a bit, but that’s nothing I can’t deal with. My wing stays sharp and defined throughout the day.
I really can’t say enough good things about this eyeliner, except that it’s pretty telling that I was willing to shell out $15 for a new one when I was previously using a $6 Maybelline eyeliner.
It glides on smoothly and doesn’t catch on my eyeshadows, even if I’m wearing just a cream base on my eye. It’s easy to fix mistakes given how small the point of the eyeliner is, and it’s easy to create one fluid thick swoop from the tip of my wing to my lid with the brush tip, as Phan also demonstrated in her announcement video for the eyeliners.
The next two products I got from Em really are first impressions of mine. The Infinite Cloud Lips sounded interesting to me back when they first launched, but I wasn’t desperate to add any of the colors to my (admittedly huge) collection. But, I needed to get a refill on my eyeliner, so I figured I’d grab a few colors off the website while I was at it to see if they were any good. It’s also my reward for de-cluttering and purging my collection last month.
After watching some YouTube reviews on the Infinite Cloud Lips, I decided to go with Rose Nude and Crimson Red. Now, in this photo of the boxes, for some reason those two colors look almost identical on the fake swatches, but I promise they’re really very different.
Phan now offers nine liquid lipstick shades on her website total, but most are darker shades I don’t find myself wearing often. These two seemed like the something I would get the most wear out of, especially as we near fall.
I’ve also read a lot about how these aren’t traditional liquid lipsticks and “fade gracefully” throughout the day to stain your lips. So instead of a thick layer of lipstick on your face all day if you use a brand like Colourpop, these are designed to fade away.
I’m trying out a more natural and soft makeup look this season, so I figured something like that couldn’t help.
These, like most other liquid lipsticks, go on pretty shiny before drying down matte. I will say, however, that these do take a while to dry down, longer than most of my other liquid lipsticks. I don’t see this being a huge problem for me, as I usually don’t eat or drink after I put my makeup on (I do all my other morning stuff before my makeup), but it could annoy other people.
The formula of these is very mousse-y and thick. Unlike my highly pigmented but very liquid Jeffree Star lipsticks (my favorite liquid lipstick formula) these are much more whipped (as the “air-whipped” formula would suggest). They also come with a doe-foot applicator with a big dip in the center to curve around your lips, some other brands also have this. I don’t find the applicator to be particularly comfortable, as I feel like the dip in the center is too large for my lips, but it isn’t a deal breaker and it didn’t make it particularity difficult to apply the lipstick.
The formula also goes on very opaque, I only needed one coat for each of these colors. Now, some reviews have said that other darker colors can be patchy and require more than one coat, so that could be something to think about.
Rose nude, like most nude lipsticks I order online, looks darker on my lips than in the bottle. But, I do have to give Em points because the website shows several models with the lipstick on, so I had an idea that it might be darker than it appeared to be.
I don’t find it too dark for my lips, and I really like the pink undertones, as I tend to suit those better than brown undertones for my nude lip colors. I also found the formula very comfortable on my lips. It wasn’t overly drying–meaning I could rub my lips together without my lipstick crumbling off–and it stayed that way even as it dried down.
It didn’t crack or fade really while I wore it, and it stayed in place pretty well. I didn’t wear it quite long enough to see if it would really fade throughout the day, but I’ll post an update when I do.
To be frank, I own a lot of red lipsticks. I love a good red lip. I’ll wear a red lip to the grocery store if I feel like it, dammit. And I really enjoy this color. The website describes it as a “true classic blue-red” and that is not a lie.
It’s almost too blue for me. Like, it has a very strong blue undertone that could go wrong on some people. It does work for me, and this is a color I can see myself wearing even more than Rose Nude. I really like how it’s equally as comfortable for me to wear, and I’m hoping it will fade and stain my lips cherry red once I decide to take it for a spin.
I also like that even though the lipstick is without a doubt matte, it’s not without some dimension, so it doesn’t make my lips look flat against my face. For $16, these aren’t a bad bargain.
Currently, I’m not sure if there are any other shades I’d be desperate to get from Em cosmetics, but I’m excited to see how these wear over time, and I do hope Em puts out a more varied shade range soon. They did just release one new fall color, Vintage Rosewood, so here’s hoping for more. And also hoping they never stop selling that glorious eyeliner.
Have you tried Em Cosmetics? What do you think?
-xo
Emily
What else I’m wearing on my face in the photos:
- Primer: MILK Makeup Blur Stick
- Foundation: L’Oreal Lumi Cushion Foundation (N2)
- Concealer:
- Benefit Bo-ing Industrial Strength Concealer (#1)
- Too Faced Born This Way Concealer (Very Fair)
- Powder: Coty Airspun
- Contour: Nabla Cosmetics Shade and Glow (Gotham)
- Blush: Benefit Dandelion
- Highlighter: Colourpop Supershock Highlighter (Lunch Money)
- Eyes:
- Nabla Cosmetics Creme Eyeshadow (Birki)
- Colourpop Pressed Shadow (Bel Air and Wake Up Call)
- Mascara: L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise
- Brows: Colourpop Precise Brow Pencil (Blondie)
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