Illamasqua Pristine Black Lipstick

Illamasqua are my overall favourite cosmetics brand for many, many reasons - the most simple one being they make both conventional and unique products that are consistently amazing quality.

They also have a great £5/£7/£10 sale going on right now which I have taken advantage of to try more of their products, particularly their vampire pale foundations/concealers (which I will review separately).

Amongst many things I picked up Pristine - a "pure black, matte finish" lipstick for £7, and promptly decided that it was the appropriate thing to wear to the dinner party I was hosting that night.

First things first: it's definitely not matte - or even demi-matte - it felt and wore like a satin lipstick which would be great for those with dry lips but cut down on its wear time massively. Pristine also had good pigmentation - especially considering it's unconventional colour - but did have a slight tendency to feather and smudge (I was not wearing lip liner).

Illamasqua vs Mac lipstick bullets - my only fault with Illamasqua is their bulky and often impractical packaging

Overall it was comfortable, opaque with average staying power and a much better black lipstick option than my OCC Lip Tar in Tarred.

I paired it with my usual face and an amped up version of my favourite gold, bronze and black eye makeup (product list below) and slung a gold headpiece on for good measure. My current loves in life are obviously unconventional lip colours, headdresses, stiletto nails and - as always - ugly jumpers.

Dark Greek Goddess? I don't really know what I was going for here

FACE:

• NARS Oil Free Primer
• NARS Sheer Glow in Siberia
• Illamasqua Hollow Cream Pigment Contour
• Illamasqua Delirium Cream Pigment Blush
• NARS Albatross Highlighter
• Illamasqua Concealers in 105 and 115
• Laura Mercier Translucent Setting Powder

EYES:

• Illamasqua Brow Cake in Motto
• NARS Smudge-proof Eyeshadow Base
• Stila Magnificent Metals Foil Finish Eyeshadow in Comex Gold
• Inglot gold and bronze eyeshadows (from my 10 pan custom palette)
• Sugarpill Bulletprrof eyeshadow
• Laura Mercier Tightlining Cake and Activator
• DollyWink Eyelashes
• Benefit They're Real Mascara

LIPS:

• Illamasqua Pristine

And in case anyone's interested this is what I actually look like the majority of the time:

And this is my most recent manicure (I tried to do an ombre with these colours but I'm terrible at nail art).

Saskia X

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