You may be tired of hearing me rave on and on about the Maybelline Matte Inks, but honestly… I’m just not tired of talking about them!

It was Rae of The Notice that originally pushed me towards trying these. I ignored her, of course – I have far more lip products than I need and my whole attitude towards them was just… how are these any different than all the other lip products out there claiming to be THE ONE? She kept yapping on about them though, so when (seemingly out of nowhere) the Maybelline Un-Nudes Matte Inks showed up in my mailbox, I realized just how eager I was to try them out.

If you’d like to see that initial review, I have a full video including lip swatches on my YouTube channel (see below). In short: these are the PERFECT lip product for me. They are comfortable to wear, non-drying, transferproof and longwearing. They are *everything* I need and want in a lip product!

After a few people saw my rave review video, friends and readers alike told me they were a bit surprised because they hadn’t liked the original Matte Inks when they were released. While the Un-Nudes collection features (you guessed it) a wide array of nude/neutral lip colours, their initial launch of the product showcased a lot more vibrant colours. So I reached out to PR and asked if they could send some over so I could do a comparison.

So that’s where we’re at now. I was sent six of the colours you see in this post, and I picked up one myself because I really wanted to show a balance of colours (and they hadn’t sent the red and I REALLY wanted the red).

My initial reaction was that these were slightly different than the Un-Nudes, but not drastically so. The tube and applicator are all the same, but I noticed that one shade didn’t have the kind of cake batter scent that I’ve come to adore with these (Heroine is the shade I’m referring to – it smells more like plastic). And the dry down time varied greatly.

Swatched out, you can see how some of them dry down a bit faster than the other (Pioneer in particular goes matte pretty fast). I do need to stress that these lip colours, although labelled a “Matte Ink“, are more on the soft matte side of things. They’re kind of like a matte with a rubber texture that has a lot of give to it.

Let’s go a bit more in depth on each shade.

Maybelline Matte Ink Lip Swatches

Loyalist is an easy nude for me since it’s got a touch of caramel colouring in it. Opaque in colour and easy to wear.

Dreamer is a bit more of a pink version of Loyalist with a hint of purple. I was hoping this would be a dupe for my Kat Von D Lovesick – but it’s really not a match.

Lover is the easy medium pink of the lot – easy to wear shade that matches a ton of eye looks.

Pioneer is the shade I was most curious about because I was wondering how on earth a red was going to stay transfer proof and not bleed throughout the day. And it performed perfectly! The only thing I would say is that this one dried down more than all of the other Matte Inks I’ve tried, which did make my lips feel a bit dry come the end of the day. That being said, it wasn’t dry like other liquid lipsticks so really this is almost hydrating in a sense.

Oh how I wish I hadn’t worn blue eyeshadow this day to take the lip swatch photos because I’m not loving how Heroine looks with my shadow! However… this is definitely my favourite shade in the bunch. It looks orange in the tube but comes out of a beautiful deep neon coral on my lips. LOVE!

Romantic is for those fuchsia lovers out there. Beautiful colour and completely opaque!

Although I hadn’t notice Creator having any patchiness issues when I wore it, there’s no denying them on my lips in the shot above. That being said, Creator is a wonderful shade and I loved wearing it.

Final Thoughts

Had people not said the formula was different, I doubt I would’ve noticed it honestly. I feel like Maybelline improved the formula SLIGHTLY with the Un-Nudes, but that could just be down to the colour of the pigments affecting the formula (I know very little about the creation of makeup, so I could just be spouting absolute BS). I felt like the Un-Nudes range was very consistent across the board, whereas the original formula had a few divergences (Pioneer was drier, Creator was a bit patchy, etc.). Fundamentally I wouldn’t say that I felt strongly against the old shades though – I love the colours they have and I can’t wait to see more! I hope Maybelline continues to put out more and more colours in the Matte Inks because this is IT for me for a longwearing liquid lipstick – this is the best I have tried and now I want it in every shade of the rainbow!

The Maybelline Matte Inks can be purchased at Ulta.com for $9.94 USD each.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.