The lipstick is very high in alcohol, which dries the lips out severely (lips peel for days) and that gives the color the ability to permeate into the skin and act as a stain.

Note: I was able to remove mine within a minute of application using a baby wipe. I wasn't willing to have it on my lips any longer due to the extreme discomfort from the burning.

Lipsense Ingredients
JANUARY 10,2017 ~ MANDY BRAIN BLOG
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Bella Lipsense-Onyx Shadowsense Makesense Foundation

So if you havent heard of Lipsense by Senegence then you are missing out! Its the perfect lip color to last all day long that is actually healthy for your lips instead of just covering your lips with colorful wax. I found it almost a year ago and was sold. I never wore lipstick before this because I hate the smell and taste of lipstick. Its nasty! But what is in this stuff to make it amazing? I can give you the ingredients but it wont make much sense.

So I came across this post from a fellow SeneSistershe totally knows her stuff and breaks down each thing in the colors and gloss and explains them to you. I got permission from her to share this all with you.

Please if you can read it all. She spent so much time putting this together and I couldnt love it more!

I am a molecular and cell biology major, ex biotech lab technician, and chemistry teacher. Written below is my post:
Warning! Very LONG!

The Science of LipSense

When looking at skincare or makeup, I agree with the philosophy that when looking at products the only thing that really matters is the ingredients list. Some ingredients are over hyped for how well they work or how dangerous they are or how safe they are. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle and I prefer to see biological data in order to draw my own conclusions. Sometimes its over my head but I try to understand all the science. That being said, I hope all the following information is accurate.

Ingredient-list-colorWhen looking into lipsense I had to look up the ingredients list. From the information I could gather, the main ingredients are the finely ground pigment bits (or molecules if I want to sound scientific) and the SD 40 alcohol. It is a lab grade alcohol meaning it will be free of any additives (like rubbing alcohols which are unsafe for human consumption: isopropyl rubbing alcohols do not contain the ethyl alcohol of alcoholic beverages; ethyl rubbing alcohols are based on denatured alcohol, which is a combination of ethyl alcohol and one or more bitter poisons that make the substance toxic.-Wikipedia). The specific type of alcohol is called ethanol (or ethyl alcohol) which is made from grains and the drinkable kind (like Everclear) but is usually mixed with denatonium salt (this is the denatured part). This salt is extremely bitter and is added to discourage consumption and so that it is not treated as an alcoholic beverage with respect to taxation and sales restrictions. Wikipedia. Im pretty sure by law they have to add this to cosmetic alcohols especially the unsafe alcohols (like in nail polish remover), again to discourage drinking it. Alcohol kills bacteria (think hand sanitizer) so your lipsense will never go bad and is what causes that tingly feeling (and what causes the tingly feeling in most toners) when you apply lipsense. There are different types of alcohols in skin care simple, fatty (gives liquids a smooth velvety feel), and aromatic (can be irritating to sensitive skin, especially for me when derived from essential oils). Ethanol (the specific alcohol in lipsense) is under the simple category and will dry out skin when used alone. This product does not work without the gloss that goes on top and shouldnt be used without it. The tingly, cooling sensation you feel when you apply Lipsense is the ethanol evaporating off your skin. Ethanol is also what acts as an exfoliant and why when you start using lipsense your lips will peel a little. If you use lipsense every day, you are essentially exfoliating your lips everyday (cause its so hard to get off) and the product will last longer the fresher the skin layer it can set on. Also the product will last longer depending on what colour you choose and how many of those tiny pigment molecules are trying to settle on your skin. Highly pigmented colours will come off easier because to get those bright colours you need a lot of pigment. These pigments are also why you have to shake the tube well before application. You need the pigments to be evenly distributed. The pH of the skin (determined by lipids that make up your skins barrier) may have a slight affect in how well it lasts but not as much as how well exfoliated your lips are. Now this is pretty much (from my knowledge) the only alcohol based lipstick and its what gives it all its cool properties you can layer the colours, it stays on forever, and it feels like you have nothing on your lips! The layer aspect is crucial for its staying power since your body breaks down the bottom layer, the environment breaks down the outer most layer, and its that middle layer that stays put.

Anything alcohol based will take your lipsense off and anything that has fats like coconut oil or olive oil will break the pigments down. The gloss you buy with your lipsense colour acts as a barrier. When you are eating heavily oily foods, you need to put it on before you eat so the colour will stay. Its long wearing but it has to come off somehow.

Other ingredients in lipsense are acrylate and copolymer, (used in cosmetics for adhesive or binding purposes and is regulated), isostearyl alcohol (a fatty alcohol), methyl glucose and butylene (skin conditioning agents that are non irritating), and hydroxypropylcellulose (thickener and lubricant sometimes used in artificial tears). These ingredients are man made and very common is cosmetics. Some ingredients that dont use the scientific name are water, St. Johns wort (medicinal herb used for its antioxidant properties but can have cause irritation when exposed to sunlight), tree peony (another medicinal herb used probably for its fragrance and skin calming properties), linden (a genus of tree species used for antioxidants), citronella, and limonene (used for scent and probably derived from lemongrass and fruit can be irritating in high doses). These other ingredients are probably in fairly small amounts since they are listed close towards the end.

Most lipsticks main ingredients are waxes and oils and lip stains are mostly water or gel. When I started researching for this post I looked into lead being in our lipsticks (which lipsense does not have and is well advertised). From the FDAs website I found that Lead occurs naturally in the environment, and its occurrence, as an impurity, in cosmetic products cant be avoided. FDA has taken action whenever necessary to remove products from the market that contain lead at unsafe levels. Unsafe was determined to be no more than 10 ppm (parts per million). There are two ways you can be exposed to lead, through ingestion or absorption through skin. With lip products, its both, but whats more troubling is the ingestion. No lead in our lipsticks is a good thing. Lead poisoning is rare but has very varied and general sick symptoms and high toxic doses can cause seizures and comas. Most cosmetics do not have higher than 10ppm of lead but for the rare few that did, it is good that this is now regulated!