Giorgio Rouge d'Armani Sheers Hydrating Lip Color 624 Dark Plum/Spinel

Today I have my final initial color selection from Giorgio Armani Beauty's Fall 2014 Fade to Grey Collection. This is my first lipstick from the line, and I'm still honestly playing with the color. Rouge d'Armani Sheer Lipstick #624 is listed online as Spinel, but my box calls it Dark Plum. Again, what's the deal with multiple shade names?

Rouge d'Armani Sheer lipsticks retail for $34 and contain 3.8g/0.13oz of product.

Since this is the first Armani lipstick that I've bought, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the packaging. Armani lipstick tubes are nicely weighty. They're not a perfect tube, but the shape fits nicely in one's hand:

There are two colors of Armani lipstick tubes. Rouge d'Armani Sheers are in black casing for easy identification.

Let's talk about the formula for a moment. Rouge d'Armani Sheers are the lighter lipstick in the line. It's comparable to Chanel's Rouge Coco Shine. As such, it's both shiny and sheer. It's as shiny as the Chanel lipsticks, and they both are far more shiny than Burberry Lip Mists.

One of the reasons why I chose #624 was because I've yet to figure out how to wear a lovely purple lipstick.

I love the Armani logo stamped on the lipstick. #624 is a bit of a difficult shade to accurately capture, so I turned on the flash to try to show the iridescence.

I really enjoy this shade, but there's one big negative that I couldn't capture on any swatch: this shade shows every imperfection. Make sure that you exfoliate prior!

Swatched in direct sun, with one pass on the left and three on the right. It's gloriously shiny and amazing:

Outside, no direct sun. This is where the purple and blue tones really pop:

Inside, with flash turned on- the warm, mauve tones surface here.

I'm going to scare you and show a full swatch of this shade. Please bear with me, as this is a lovely shade. It just (in my opinion) requires a bit of tweaking to be workable in real life situations.

Outside, in direct sun:

Outside, no direct sun:

It's a lovely shade, so I wanted to make this work.  Luckily, all it took was a bit of blotting. It's like it's a totally new shade! #624 becomes a lovely mauve with purple undertones. When I tested it, it lasted about three hours- until I started eating/drinking. That's pretty standard for me.

Back in the direct sun, with the original lipstick blotted:

Outside, no direct sun:

Much better!  And work-friendly.

It's completely wearable and on-trend for fall. I'm going to keep exploring this range. I purchased my lipstick in-store at Neiman Marcus, the only local store with the Fall 2014 collection currently in-store. However, it's available at all of the usual places online.