Kanebo KATE lipstick ND in BE-2 (Rosu Beigu)

Hi everyone! Brrr it’s a cold and stormy night here, I can’t wait to be on the beach in Bali! I’m going to be away for approximately a week, as of next week, so I have some scheduled posts planned. I’ve been to parts of South East Asia before but never Bali or any other part of Indonesia, so if anyone has any tips I’m all ears!

=WARNING= Tonight’s post is picture heavy!

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Kanebo is a well known cosmetics brand in Japan. In recent years they have released the KATE range, which is intended to be a more affordable range and appealing to young women. What drew me to KATE is one of their most famous models – singer Nakashima Mika (she has a great voice!) – whom they’ve featured in many of their advertising campaigns. Here she is in some of their ads:

I don’t know about you but amazing ads like this make me want to run out and buy their makeup! Image: KATE

image: KATE

image: KATE

So, a few months back when I was doing a bit of a shop for Japanese skin care and cosmetics stuff on eBay, I decided to try one of KATE‘s lipsticks – in the lipstick ND range and in shade BE-2, Rosu Beigu. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what the “ND” stands for! Nude, maybe? (From what I could see from the eBay seller I visited, there are only a couple of shades in this range and they are all in the brown/nude family.)

Price and where can I get it? I picked this up for approximately $15 AUD on eBay. On the product’s packaging I notice that the Japan RRP is 1,000 yen – equivalent to $12-ish AUD (today’s exchange rate). So not bad!

Let’s have a look at it – I started liking the contrast of colours with some pears on my benchtop, so that’s what the green things are!

Swatches ~ This is another one that I’ve worn to work a lot so I snapped pics with my Android phone during my lunch break! First pic with flash, second without.

I have some bad news people – this is not an impressive lipstick. I like the packaging, the subtle colour, the fact it is fragrance free, and that it is not drying on the lips. What I don’t like is that the formulation is thin and that it wears off extremely quickly. I would liken its effects to be more like a lipgloss, but then it is not particularly glossy or sticky like some glosses.

I won’t be repurchasing – such a shame! Oh well I’ll just have to try different KATE products instead, won’t I?

Beautiful rating 6/10 – quality 3/5 and value 3/5. Very average. Or as the Japanese might say, dokoni nanimo!

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Have you tried any Kanebo and/or KATE products? Recommended picks?