When this Hard Candy Glitteratzi Press + Play Glitter Transforming Lip Color package showed up in my mailbox one day last month I was absolutely freaking floored. Number one… I had never heard of these, and they’re GLITTERY. Number two? Could these be the drugstore answer to the Ciate Glitter Flips that made the beauty world explode in 2017??

For those unfamiliar with the Ciate Glitter Flips, they’re essentially a liquid lipstick that when you press your lips together it reveals a wash of straight up glitter on your lips. It’s actually kind of a miraculous reveal, so I was eager to see that Hard Candy was billing their Glitteratzi Press + Play lipsticks as a very similar product. They say these are a matte lip colour that transforms into a sparkling finish once you press your lips together. They are… SORT of matte, when you first apply them, but you can still see a hint of sparkle through the base of the product (the hidden glitter!), so for me these are more on the metallic side of things rather than a flat out matte. It’s a *soft* metallic look, but it’s there.

There are seven shades in the range with some impressively bold colours in the mix. I guess Hard Candy figured that if you’re in the market for a glitter lipstick, you’re probably not one to shy away from unique and off the wall colours. And I really feel like they hit the mark on the colour selection to be honest – these are different, they’re fun, and it’s nice to see a drugstore brand do something that isn’t safe, conventional or expected.

In the swatches above you can see some of the sparkle shining through the product in a direct swatch. I swatched the shade Dazzle first, so you can see how that dries down after about a minute or so, whereas Slay was the last one I swatched and I took this photo within seconds of swatching. So they start off like any other liquid lipstick, and dry down fairly quickly.

On application each shade is incredible, and nearly completely opaque in colour (only the two last shades had the very faintest whisper of some translucency). However, once you put your lips together to reveal the glitter, you can end up with a slightly different story depending on the shade you’re using.

First of all, the glitter is gorgeous – and it’s really cool to “reveal” the glitter when you push your lips together, I love that aspect so much. BUT, while most shades are fine and have a small amount of lifting (just like the Ciate Glitter Flips, I might add – those shades do have some lifting when you press your lips together), there are two that are completely unwearable due to the lifting. I found Slay and Dazzle to be unwearable not because of the colour, but because of the way they tore chunks out of the lip colour when I pressed my lips together. Interestingly, while I can see there is a decent amount of missing patches on Charm (the red), I would say that one looks completely flawless in real life. I think the studio lights are highlighting some problems that the naked eye wouldn’t normally observe. Melanie of I’m Not A Beauty Guru had a similar experience with some of the lifting, but still found these products to be really lovely to wear too!

Final Thoughts

For an $8 CAD glitter liquid lipstick, these are pretty freaking cool! The Hard Candy Glitteratzi Press + Play lip colours aren’t flawless, but if you skip the shades that I had difficulty with then I think you’ll find the remaining shades are beautiful and fun to wear. Out of all seven shades my favourites are definitely Charm, Glitz, and Allure.

I’m really happy to see a drug store brand putting out fun and exciting products. I know these are essentially a knockoff of the Glitter Flips and some people don’t like copycat products, but meh – as far as I’m concerned the drugstore needs an injection of fun sometimes and I’m glad to see Hard Candy delivering on that!

The Hard Candy Glitteratzi Press + Play Glitter Transforming Lip Color can be purchased on walmart.ca for $7.98 CAD or on walmart.com for $6 USD.

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