Barry M Lip Paints

So for those of you who don't know (and where the hell have you been?! Leave the house once in a while!) Barry M is a UK brand who call themselves the "most colourful name in cosmetics." I'm in love with thier Dazzle Dusts, the loose pigments, but recentley I've bought a few of thier Lip Paints. I remember having the black colour back in my (bad) goth days, and a black Dazzle Dust. Needless to say I couldn't apply make-up to save my life back then - so much so that my DAD would adjust it for me before I left the house!

Anyway, Barry M has about thirty colours of lipsticks, or Lip Paints as they call them, though sadly most of them are not available in shops. Barry M is carried in Boots and Superdrug and normally they have around 10-15 shades, ranging from oranges, pinks, nudes and reds. I got all these in Superdrug for £4.25 each, but Boots nearly always has Barry M on three for two. Barry M ships worldwide, but the shipping is pretty expensive at £8.00 for countries outside Europe.

So anywhoo, here are the colours I have...

-No. 117 Orange: This colour is a bright orange/tangerine colour. I bought it for St. Patricks day where I paired it with green eyebrows and am trying to be brave enough to wear it out on a normal day!



Thats the website photo, and here it is on my lips:




I totally recommend a balm under this lipstick. As you can tell from the lovely skin flakes on my lips, its not the best for lips that are feeling a bit sorry for themselves. The forumla of this one is slightly dry, but as I hope you can tell, its pretty pigmented so I will forgive it. It takes a few swoops to become opaque, and it stains a teeny, tiny bit. But its orange, guys! I think it looks pretty fab. Also, I don't have it, but Barry M make a lip gloss in this colour, which would be fab on top or great for those who want to do orange but aren't this brave. I shall be purchasing it on pay day, it's amazing. :)

-No 136 Golden Bronze: This is a bronzed nude with what I think is a slight golden- rose undertone to it.







Nice, huh? This is a good nude for me. As its slightly metallic with that bronzey-rose undertone, its not too cool. The second photo is paired with Barry M lipgloss (ha, I totally typde lip glodd) in No. 2, which has a yummy chocolate scent, fyi. I have no problems with the application of this colour whatsoever, it is much creamier than the orange shade.

-No 129 Palest Lavender: A pale lavender! Shocking! You may have noticed that the colours on the Barry M website are not really representative. This one looks like its a pink shade:



But it ain't:



Waaaa :( I really, really wanted to love this colour. I had so many smokey purple eye looks in my brain ready for this. But it so hard to work with, and out of the five colours I have, its definitely the worst forumla. Its really sheer, hard to layer up, and as you can see, it goes on all streaky. Still, its only £4.25 and so its much cheaper than other lippies I know this has been comapared with, such as Mac Lilac Whip and Lime Crime Airbourne Unicorn. I *can* get this to look nice with a lot of patience and blotting, but not truly opaque. Serves me right for buying stupid lipstick shades because Lady Gaga wore one.

-No 141 Royal Raspberry. I LOVE this colour, and my boyfriend really likes it as well, so this has become my go-to 'sexy' lippy.






In reality, this is more of a berry colour, its a little darker than shows here, and a more definite blue undertone. It lasts pretty well on me, and reds usually don't for some reason. I think it's totally gorgeous, and because it has that metallic look to it, its really nice for giving a slightly modern twist on the classic 50's pin up look.

-Touch of Magic Lip Paint:



'TIS GREEN! Ha, its not really green, although they do carry a green lipstick. Its a balmy lipstick that turns a different shade of pink according to the alkali levels on your lips. Now, I'm always sceptical of this sort of claim - I think the alkali thing is a big load of bollocks, and that balmy, sheer colours will turn a different colour because people... wait for it... have different colour lips! However, whether this is cobblers or not is irrelevant because I love this product!



Thats right after putting it on. It looks like I have the rose Vaseline on. I don't have a comparison shot of my lips with nothing on them, but trust me, they are not very pink at all. And now once its 'developed':




It doesn't look like the biggest difference from the first picture, but my lips are a bright pink rose colour. Barry M promises that this lippy lasts for eight hours, and it does, but it's because it dries from a balm to a stain. Personally, I love it because I can pop it on and not have to retouch while I'm working. I don't find it drying like some stains and long-lasting lipcolours, but because its balmy at first, I do like to re-apply balm over the top as that feeling wears away fairly quickly. Basically, this is all I wanted Benetint to be .(Benetint, in case you don't know, is a cult best-selling rose coloured lip and cheek stain. In my opinion, it is total crapola. It's really runny and you don't get a great colour, also it's about £18, and you can get a dupe from MEMEME for like, a fiver. I love Benefit, but Benetint = bleh.)

So anyway.... to summarise:

Pros:

-A great range of colours. Some more out there shades for the cray-cray girls but some nice neutral and classic colours too.
-The price. £4.25 is pretty darn reasonable.
-The majority go on nicely, aren't difficult to make look nice and last fairly well.
-Don't have a strong smell, which is nice.
-Packaging is nice if fairly standard; matte, squared off tubes with the logo in gold.

Cons:
-The range is no consistent, but then, no large range of colour is.
-They're not all available in stores, so if you wanted something really mad like the blue or green, maybe £4.25 is a bit much to gamble on.
-The orange stains a little, so I bet some of the other colours like the bright pink stain a little too. I think this is a con, you may see it as a plus.
-Each tube only has the number, not the colour on it (apart from the Touch Of Magic.) If you're not very organized, have a terrible memory and/or a lot of lipsticks, this can be a pain in the bum. I have five of these and I don't know which is which.


Would I repurchase: 100% yes. I'll be getting the black, a peach and a bright pink in the very near future.

Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx