Giorgio Armani Cosmetics Lip Maestro Intense Fusion Color

Giorgio Armani has created his first liquid lipstick, inspired by his love of luxurious fabrics. "Color like velvet. Feels like a veil. Offers total color impact."

Giorgio Armani's marketing for Lip Maestro ($32) tells us it's a fourth-generation lip color that reproduces on our lips the silk velvet that moves with light in an almost fourth-dimensional way. Sounds like science fiction - in a good way. Who doesn't love silk velvet?

A technological breakthrough led to Lip Maestro's creation. Lip Fusion's new liquid lipstick base holds a unique Soft-Focus finish with anti-shine properties. Instead of rejecting light, the Soft Focus finish is said to capture it and fuse it with saturated pigments. Colors glow from within, no longer faded by surface reflections. The color impact is stronger than ever - color in 4D.

Offering a new texture for the lips, the Velvet Weave elastomer forms a gel network that fuses with the lips (this has got to be true - see below). The softest lip veil ever created - with no makeup feel - results. It has a zero-density sensation, but total color "vibration" to intensify your color experience.

There are 12 shades of Lip Maestro. You can see them all at the Giorgio Armani Beauty Web site. I took my photo of the testers at Saks Fifth Avenue in Chevy Chase. Somehow, we must have lost one for the photo (maybe Loyd was playing with it). I count 11 above.

I selected #501, called Casual Pink online. It's shown on the left in the photo above. I love "rosewood shades," and it appealed to me more than the other light shades, one of which was flat brown. Loyd Cassler was helping me, and he kiddingly pushed the fire engine orange-red, even showing me how bright it looked on his hand. I hope he got it off his hand that day because these liquid lip colors are extraordinarily long lasting - more so than any other Armani lipstick - and he let the color set.

I took my swatch photos in full sun, and you'll see shine. The finish is not shiny. I tried to turn my arm this way and that in an effort to snap a photo with accurate color and accurate finish. I failed. I got the color, but also got shine. Sorry about that. The sun was blazing, even though it was chilly outside.

If you love the latest trend, velvet-finish and matte lipsticks that are intense, you will love Armani's new Lip Maestro. It's so long lasting, it will survive at least one meal and maybe more. It offers decent hydration. It is, as promised, weightless on the lips. It melds with lips and tints them with saturated color. The applicator is a bit elongated, making it easy to apply Lip Maestro with precision. You'll need that along the edges of your lips because the line must be perfect.

Unfortunately, I don't find these trendy, flat, intense lip colors flattering. I'm a gloss kind of gal. Despite the pretty color you see above, I think #501 looks horrific on me. It leaves me with flat, dull rose lips - almost ghastly. It's hard to describe how bad it looks in a paragraph near a photo that portrays a pretty color.

Of course, I can add a gloss over Lip Maestro and give it a shine. That's akin to wearing a lip tint for long-lasting color and re-applying gloss frequently to make it look good. I'm not up for that when I have so many lipsticks that offer great color and shine. Experiment over, even though I consider myself an Armani groupie.

I suspect we're evenly divided between fans of trendy and conservative, matte and shiny. These new Lip Maestros may be perfect for you. Don't let my personal preferences keep you from trying them. If you have been looking for a lip color with the qualities of Lip Maestro, look no further.

Giorgio  Armani's Lip Maestros are available online (use the link above) and at Saks Fifth Avenue, where I purchased mine. If they aren't at your favorite Armani counter yet, they will be soon. I'll be eager to know what you think.

Photos by Best Things in Beauty