Lip Tar Custom Mixes: Preliminary Adventures

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics make a liquid lipstick called Lip Tar - you paint it on as the thinnest possible layer (about a bead half the size of a pin head) with an included brush, it then dries to a demi-matte finish. It's amazingly pigmented, long wearing and comfortable to boot.

I currently own 10 of them - 7 traditional(ish) lip colours I love and 4 mixing colours:

Vintage, NSFW, Strumpet, Nylon, Hoochie, Lydia, Interlace, Tarred, Rx, Traffic, Feathered

I finally have the time in my life (thanks to being partially crippled due to recent knee surgery) to play creative artist with all my new colours (below are A TON of photos - proceed with caution).

Here's the method I use to apply them:

• Moisturise with lip balm and let it sink in for a couple of minutes
• Wipe off the excess lip balm with a tissue paper
• Apply the thinnest possible layer to give a wash of colour and create the lip shape
• Top up to full opacity with another tiny bit of Tar

That will give you a true to Tar colour which is cleanly and easily shaped and doesn't smudge or feather. To then mix an on-the-mouth colour (as opposed to mixing it on a tray/pot) dab on the least possible amount of your second colour and blend out. If you're trying to add a lighter colour over a darker colour (eg red over blue) remember to blot off the excess dark colour first or you'll have to add too much of the lighter colour thus ending up with a gloopy mouth and wasted product.

So without further adu check out my absurdly colourful mouth:

Bare lips

Two coats of Traffic - you can see it's pretty patchy and not as pigment dense as the others

Tried to get graphic and creative: looked like a mouth-flag

Blended it out

You can really see the texture difference between pure traffic and with Rx blended in

Fully blended out and matching my eyes!

Added more Rx, sad green lipstick doesn't suit me as well as I dreamed it would

You can really see the much smoother texture here

Blotted and added Feathered to get a mint green; quick comparison to Lime Crime's Mint To Be (I wasn't trying to colour match here)

Started a fresh with NSFW which is easily the most beautiful true red I have ever seen - neither orange nor too cool.
I originally bought it for mixing as a primary red, but will now definitely wear it alone.

Magical, majestic, magnificent... I'll stop now. It's just perfect

This is where I start getting bored with my regular facial expression

Created an ombre with Tarred but sadly the consistency was even worse than Traffic

Darkened it more - there's a ton of feathering with Tarred and it's really liquid-y, thus sadly this would not be long wearing orpractical to wear out

Blended it together

Added some Rx

Back to bare lips - a reminder of our canvas' original colour

Rx - the pigmentation and consistency was lovely just like NSFW

Added some NSFW and gave up trying to make a cheerfully neutral facial expression

Blotted, added Feathered

Blotted again, more Feathered

Ok so here you can see an issue I ran into: Rx stained my lips badly, making it impossible to get a true purple.
If you're going to be using Rx in a mix always use it second for on the mouth blending as none of the other colours really stain

Stained lips after about half a dozen scrubs with makeup remover

Attempted to roll with it and add Feathered and NSFW on top of the staining

More NSFW

You can still see the staining causing an inconsistent colour and texture. My custom purple/violet/lilac/lavender  dreams did not come true today, but I will try again soon with NSFW as the base colour

I pretty much had to shed 3 layers of skin to get them back to their (almost) original colour

Feathered. Yes, I am so pale I can colour and blend outside of the lines with a pure white lipstick

Unexpected downside: my pearly whites no longer look pearly white!

Im so bored at this point I barely bothered to blend and pose

Feathered and NSFW

After disappointment with the purples this NSFW+Feathered mix really made my night, somehow this photo doesn't do it justice

Not a custom mix but I wanted to wear purple out for cocktails so settled for plain Hoochie

Obviously this isn't anywhere close to the full creative and colourful potential of my Lip Tars (I've got my heart set on a sunset ombre like my Sugarpill eyeshadow look) but it's a great jumping off point. I'll definitely be revisiting this theme/project with both conventional (reds, pinks, corals, purples?) and off the wall colours and combinations.

Also, shout out to Cocktail Cosmetics for being an amazing UK distributor of Lip Tars (and Sugarpill and Lime Crime) - the owner Julie Burford gave me pretty much the best customer service I've ever encountered and my orders arrived amazingly fast and beautifully packaged.

Saskia X

PrettyTrivialities@gmail.com

Sugarpill Burning Heart palette review and faces

I've fallen in love...

Behold the Burning Heart palette by Sugarpill:

Honestly I'm not the biggest fan of the packaging, but the cardboard feels sturdy and classy

I impulse bought the Sugarpill Burning Heart palette at 3am - this was something I'd been um-ing and ah-ing for months after seeing gorgeous sunset eyeshadow looks around the internet, but for various reasons (see below) always talked myself out of buying. I'm so glad my sleep deprived self decided to take the plunge!

So what's so special about this palette?

Well for one it's gorgeous:

Orange: Flamepoint, Yellow: Buttercupcake, Red: Love+, Purple: Poison Plum

The second is the simple quality of the product - these eyeshadows are fantastic! They're incredibly pigmented and soft; bold true to pan colours that are very easy to work with (they blend great).

Left: one pat of colour with my finer, Right: two pats. No primer!
Flamepoint and Poison Plum are just a tad softer than Buttercupcake and Love+

And the trifecta? These shadows stay put - check out how immaculate this complex look is after a 30°C 80% humidity 12 hour day:

You can see some minor fading in the bottom outer corners where I rub my eyes when they get itchy

My foundation obviously did not hold up nearly as well

 And then after a shower where I literally stood with my face directly under the stream for a couple of minutes:

My sexy 'not bad' face plus shower cap - restrain yourselves men.
My mascara didn't hold up, but then again it wasn't advertised as waterproof.

Seriously - look at that! The colours are still freaking perfect in everyway!

And here for comparison is what it looked like 12 hours previously when I'd applied it in the morning:

Look how smug my face is about these insane shadows

Another look using only Poison Plum and Love+ (plus Urban Decay's Blackout):

Overall, this palette is the shining glory of my collection - I genuinely can't think of a single way it could possibly improve as even the price is great ($34 for 3.5g).


A final word on quality: as Sugarpill is a small online only indie company I had to set a lot of store in reviews, swatches and FOTDs (face of the day) - and while researching one thing gave me huge pause...

I'd read multiple times that Sugarpill had some inconsistent quality issues, i.e. some shadows worked great and were buttery soft while others (and these duds were seemingly random and different in each case) were chalky and difficult to work with. I emailed Sugarpill about this concern and they got back to me within a week explaining that those problems probably occurred while they were moving their lab and if I found a problem with my shadows they'd exchange them free of cost (not charging my triple shipping) which I thought was very generous.

Their "happiness guaranteed policy" sure paid off because I will definitely be purchasing again from them! And if you chose to purchase from them, and feel like doing me a favour, you can go through my affiliate link here which just means if you do buy anything through that link to their regular official website I'll get credit :)



Saskia X

PrettyTrivialities@gmail.com