Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick ($25.00 for 0.10 oz.) is a cool-toned, medium-dark fuchsia pink with a soft iridescent frost sheen. It has a frosted matte finish. NARS 413 BLKR is actually very similar–a smidgen darker but otherwise close both in color and finish. Illamasqua Atomic is also close in color and finish, as it has that frosted matte look and fuchsia hue.

Estee Lauder’s most recent lipstick formula is a far cry from where mattes have come; this feels like an old school matte: the kind that’s clingy, drying, and so hard to endure wearing. The color just gets sucked onto the lips leaving them looking dry and chapped, rather than healthy, and it really does feel like it’s sucking all of the moisture of your lips while it wears.  Demure wears for six hours, though, and leaves behind a noticeable stain, too.  The consistency is stiff, so it pulls and tugs at the lips when you apply the color.

Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick

Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick

Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick

Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick

Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick

Estee Lauder Demure Pure Color Sheer Matte Lipstick