Review: MUA £1 Lipsticks in Shades 16, 4 and 7

The MUA £1 lipsticks have been much hyped in the blogging world with many budget beauty bloggers hailing them as highlights of their lipstick collection for not just price but formula and pigmentation. I'm a big fan of the MUA Plumping Glosses; Candy Pink is a permanent fixture in my make up bag, so while in Superdrug with a few coins to spare I thought I'd pick up a few of the lipsticks in the hope I'd like them as much as well.

After lots of hand swatching I settled on the shades 16 Nectar, 4 and 7 (shown in order in the photo and swatches above) out of the sixteen shades available. It seems weird to me that they've only named some and not all of their lipsticks, not that a name makes any difference to what's in the tube but it does gives the impression that they care about their products and aren't just churning any old thing out of a factory. The packaging isn't the most stylish but it's nice, I like that you can see the colour through the little screw-off pot on the bottom but as the pots are too small to fit my finger without digging my nail into the product they're a bit redundant unless using a lip brush.
On my hand numbers 7 and 16 looked like lovely colours- one a slightly shimmery dusky red-pink and the other a strong orange with smooth and evenly pigmented formulas. While I can't deny that they apply smoothly and start off glossy, number 16 has been mistaken for red after about 10 minutes on my lips and I really haven't got a lot of wear out of number 7 as I feel it looks much better on my hand than lips where it turns into a rather neither-here-nor-there colour. As these both dry down they look increasingly similar in shade despite being quite different in the bullet, as you can see from the photos. I've been getting more wear out of number 16 as a sheer cheek colour than on my lips so if you're looking for a super cheap sheer blush I'd actually recommend these for that purpose.
Shade number 7 is strangely a completely different formula to the two above, I loved the bright milky pink colour of the bullet but the tester in the shop was a bit mashed up so as it deposited a lot of product on my hand I thought the colour I saw was the colour I'd be getting. In actuality, number 7 is very very sheer, I have to literally swipe 10 times for it to show at all on my lips and while it is very glossy it really sinks into the fine lines. The colour doesn't last long on my lips and despite having a high shine and almost melting from the bullet onto my skin I find my lips a bit chapped and dry after reapplying throughout the day. If number 7 had a similar formula to the two above I would probably get a lot more wear out of it as I really like the colour when it actually shows up but as it stands this isn't a product I reach for very often.

This is a bit of a mixed review for these, I think if you're more of a dark pink/red type of person then you'll probably have a better experience than me as the colour I liked the most had a bit of a naff formula. To be fair they are nice for the £1 that they cost, kind of in the same way that socks from Primark are nice for the few pounds that they cost, but from all the good reviews I was expecting them to be more than just... nice. Shopping with MUA, I'd prefer to pay a couple of pounds more and get a product like the Power Pouts which are available in less colours but are more pigmented and have a formula I much prefer.

Have you tried any of the MUA £1 Lipsticks?