The closest I usually come to listening to techno beats is walking past street construction on my way to buy groceries. So when I got an email about Simi and Haze Khadra’s new makeup line, I wasn’t thinking of it as celebrity makeup—the identical twin DJs boast over a million Instagram followers, yet as of a week ago, I had no idea who they were. My bad! What I did know was that their faces seemed as finely tuned as CGI animations, and that I needed to hold their products in my hands. I wasn’t looking for another no-makeup-makeup multiple, and I certainly didn’t need one. But a lip balm with packaging that would make a Peep jealous? That’s innovation!
On the outside, the balms in question look like two radioactive green marshmallows stacked on top of each other, snowman-style. And the matching liquid blushes have that same soft, Jet-Puffed silhouette rendered in a confectionary bubblegum. I love how the color palette is so retro (the two hues take after antique jadeite pitchers and pink milk glass bowls), even though their sculptural shape is modern. They look squishy, but really they’re hard and slightly textured, the way smoothed stone is. The blush has a screw cap, while the lipstick comes with a magnetic top that opens and shuts with a satisfying click. I love playing with them. I’m thinking that, when I reach the bottom, I could give them to a child to repurpose as building blocks, or modified fidget spinners. I will have to find a child first.
What about the formulas inside, you ask? Well, they’re pretty good! Sun Flush is sheer and gel-like, similar to Glossier Cloud Paint but with a doe-foot applicator. My favorite shade is Sand, a pink-brown that toes the line between blush and bronzer. The Velvet Blur Matte Balm is more blur than balm, though it does glide on without any tug and leaves behind a creaminess that I can feel when I rub my lips together. Windburn is so flattering on me (it happens to be the twins’ favorite shade as well), and I can see Roseberry and Dusk looking really lovely on darker skin tones. The line has several of nuanced nudes.
I swear, reader, I’m not even a sucker for packaging. This stuff just really spoke to me, with a siren song like a glistening Tide Pod’s. Do you know what I mean? I’ll let you decide whether or not scratching that itch is worth a $36 price tag.
—Ali Oshinsky
Photos via ITG
