French luxury brand Hermes turns orange to red on March 4, 2020. Before I share with you my experience of the launch day in Toronto, Canada. Let us briefly talk about some facts of this new lipstick collection – ROUGE HERMES
The permanent collection is made up of 24 high-pigment shades in matte and satine finishes (10 in matte finishes & 14 in Satine finishes). In additions, there will be a 6-monthly launch of 3 limited edition lipstick shades. The matte finish lipsticks were inspired by the colors of leather, whereas the satine finish lipsticks were inspired by the colors of its silk archives.
Beyond the radiant hues, the lipsticks are packed in refillable (refills are not yet available in Canadian stores!) and plastic-free tubes. Every lipstick tube is assembled by hand and is made from the same metal used in the hardware of their famed handbags. The lipsticks are also slightly scented, gluten-free and non-vegan. In additions to the lipstick collection, the Brand also launched a lip care balm, a poppy lip shine, a universal lip pencil and a lip brush in lacquered wood. Worth brief mentioning about the lip brush, as according to my SA, it is made and assembled by hand of the finest brush-maker in France. The pen is priced at USD75 but $113 in Canada (it is slightly cheaper in US!)
The Rouge Hermes Collection is now available in selected Hermes Boutiques and online at Hermes.com. (Yes, in selected stores only!!! For example, it is not available in the Calgary Store as for Canada). The price of regular shades is USD67, seasonal shades are USD72 and refills are USD42. No surprise to any of us that it is more expensive than lipsticks made by other luxury designer houses. Just to give you a rough idea: lipsticks made by Gucci priced at USD42 and by Chanel priced at USD38-45.
My Hermes Store in Toronto opens at 10am and I walked in at 11.20am. As usual I was greeted by my SA, my SM and served a bottle of sparkling water. They also were serving some fine chocolates (I am a chocoholic hehe…). I was informed by my SA that both Rouge Casaque and Rouge H are sold out in less than an hour!!! But thankfully my wonderful SA did some homework prior the launch day and he held one Rouge Casaque for me :))
As I approached the table where the lipsticks were presented, I was not surprised why some items were sold out so quickly. It was packed with customers. There were around 20 people surrounding that little table. It was hard to try on all the colors because some testers were misplaced or some customers were applying testers directly on to their lips >.< (which turned me off from trying those testers!). However, all the SA were trying their very best to keep the testers “clean” by wiping them with alcohol every time before they apply it on a different customer. Was that sufficient or what else can they do otherwise?
At the end, I brought home 3 lipsticks (1 x Rouge Casaque ; 1x poppy lip shine; 1x Corail Fou from the limited edition) and a lip pencil. I think I got the last Corail Fou of the day hehe… My SA also gave me some samples of lip colors. For people who were in store on the launch day, I would like to hear your experience. Would you rather go on a different day or purchased them online instead?
- wendy posted 5 years ago
