Ruby Hammer Recommends- Not sure if I do.

I bought the Ruby Hammer Recommend Lip Gloss Collection in the Debenhams sale. It was reduced from £7 to £3.50, a good price for 5 lipglosses. I liked some of the Ruby and Millie range so I had high hopes for the lipglosses.

The outer packaging is fairly rubbish and disposable. I certainly wouldn’t put it on display. The writing states that you can be your own makeup artist with these products and that they represent Ruby’s own pro kit. Oooooooooooooh! Ruby Hammer- you big liar! Ok, you might carry a selection of glosses but I’m pretty damn sure you don’t use these on your clients. Tell the truth; you put your name to it for a big fat pay check (Allegedly).

The glosses also have fairly dismal packaging. The plastic tubes feel very cheap and flimsy- much more £1 MUA than £15 Lancôme. The only decoration is a simple ‘R’ and they haven’t even been given names. Annoyingly, the some of the applicators  have a small ridge of plastic just above the hole which feels rough on the lips on application. However, at least the hole is the right size so the product can be nicely distributed on the lips.

Each lipgloss varies in quality and consistency. I wouldn’t call them moisturising but at least they don’t dry my lips out. They are all fairly smooth without any stickiness. Some are too runny for my taste but YMMV. They last about 1-2 hours on my lips without having to be reapplied, so fairly average in terms of wear on me. There is a very mild fruity taste and scent but it’s hardly detectable and inoffensive to the senses.

Lto R- Pink, Coral, Fuchsia, Baby Pink, Berry

Pink- 

Basic sheer pink. One of the best glosses as it has pigment, doesn’t settle and lasts a reasonable time. The swatch shows the pigment is unstable but it doesn’t do that on my lips.

Coral-

Very sheer, so the colour effect is muted into YLBB. Settles in liplines and is quite runny.

Fuchsia- 

Looks amazing in the tube- a hot pink with blue iridescence (which the camera hasn’t picked up). On the lips it’s a massive fail. The colour is too sheer and the formula settles in the liplines. Such a shame. I’m going to persevere with this over lipsticks to see if I can get it to work as it’s a unique shade to my collection.

Baby Pink- 

Looks a light peach in the tube but shows as a baby pink on my skin. However on my lips I can’t see any colour at all. I might as well have used a clear gloss. 

Berry- 

Well pigmented and reasonably long lasting but the annoying applicator makes it difficult to apply on my wonky lips accurately, something quite obvious on a colour like this.

So I’m going to damn these with faint praise. They are average, bog standard glosses. Nothing offensive but nothing extraordinary. They are worth £3.50. I suppose they are worth the original £7 given you get 5 glosses. However they haven’t tempted me to buy any more of the Ruby Hammer Recommends range. If I had got them as a gift I wouldn’t have been upset but had there been the chance to swatch before I bought I would have passed on them.