Tony Moly CatChu Wink Cherry / Innisfree EcoFlower Tint Azalea / Etude House Dear Darling Tint Berry

When I was first getting into experimenting with Asian beauty products, I was obsessed with lip stains. Lip stains are a cyclical obsession for me and I have come back around to my stains recently, so I wanted to review these three. I have the Tony Moly Cat Chu Wink tint in #1 Cherry, the Innisfree Eco Flower Tint in #04 Azalea, and the Etude House Dear Darling Tint in #1 Berry. I bought all three on Rose Rose Shop and received my order from South Korea about three weeks later.

Left to right, Innisfree Eco Flower tint in Azalea, Etude House Dear Darling Tint in Berry, Tony Moly Cat Chu Wink Tony Tint in Cherry



Packaging

Left to right, Tony Moly Cat Chu Wink Tony Tint in Cherry, Etude House Dear Darling Tint in Berry, and Innisfree Eco Flower tint in Azalea

All three tints come in bottles with a doe foot applicator. The packaging for each tint is similar to a lip gloss. The Tony Moly Cat Chu tint is especially cute - the top of the cap is shaped like a cat.

Left to right, applicators for the Innisfree Eco Flower Tint, the Etude House Dear Darling Tint, and the Tony Moly Cat Chu Tint

While these products are technically lip and cheek combo formulas, I use each of these most often on the lips. Similar to Benefit's stains, especially Benetint, the applicator is tricky because it deposits a targeted amount of product. The formula will stain quickly, leaving you an excruciatingly small window for blending.

Swatches:

As always, swatches are on bare, unprimed skin. The left swatch is blended, the right swatch is one swipe from the applicator. The top picture shows normal swatches, the bottom picture shows the stain after about 3 minutes of the product sitting on the skin.

Left to right, Tony Moly Cat Chu Wink tint in Cherry, Etude House Dear Darling tint in Berry, Innisfree Eco Flower tint in Azalea

Left to right, Tony Moly Cat Chu Wink tint in Cherry, Etude House Dear Darling tint in Berry, Innisfree Eco Flower tint in Azalea

As you can see, these products all stain very quickly and effectively on the skin. Unfortunately, these don't stain as cleanly on the lips if you are experiencing any dryness or texture issues.  The Innisfree tint mitigates this problem partially with a more milky and viscous formula, but at the cost of a shorter wear time. Both the Etude House and the Tony Moly have a similar liquid texture to Benefit's Benetint.

Overall, I can't recommend these. The stain, while potent on my arm, doesn't apply easily or evenly to my lips. As with most staining lip products, the stain will emphasize any texture or dry patches in your lips. These are a total bust on the cheeks because of the immediacy of the staining. To add insult to injury, they all smell weird - the Innisfree smells like Grandma potpourri and the Etude House and Tony Moly smell like fruity chemical cough syrup.

If you are interested in lip stains I prefer to these, I really enjoy the YSL glossy stains (review and swatches of #7 Corail Aquatique here) and the L'Oreal glossy stains (review and swatches of Lilac Ever After here). Happy shopping!