Back in August various beauty blogs reported that Lancôme's new artistic director, Aaron de Mey, created a limited-edition lip set consisting of a sparkly black lip gloss and a lipstick inspired by the instantly recognizable red sole of a Christian Louboutin shoe.
Named after the "black sand beach where Aaron grew up in New Zealand," the Piha set would be released in November, appearing only at the 59th street location of Bloomingdales in NYC and several Lancôme boutiques with 500 sets made available. An additional 100 sets would be sold online at the Lancôme website. (I must note that I've been stalking the Lancôme site since November 1 and have yet to see them, and e-mailed customer service and was told they had no idea when the sets would arrive.) In any case, the idea behind the set is genius – a combination of the latest cosmetics trend (dark lips) and a lipstick that resembles the iconic creation (red soles) of Louboutin. But perhaps I'm also taken with the set because it brings together my two biggest weaknesses: makeup and shoes.
Now for the fun part! Although I was unable to procure a Piha set for myself to compare the lipstick to Louboutin soles (I am the proud owner of the ones shown below), I can still determine if the lipstick is a good match based on online photos, like the one above from the New York Times.
Judging from these two pictures, the lipstick looks pretty accurate!