Holy Crap: Topshop Velvet Lips in Raven

When I saw this in Topshop yesterday I had the biggest makeupgasm I’ve had for a VERY long time. I’m a huge fan of ‘velvet’ lip products, and am super happy brands like MUA, Sleek and drugstore brands over the world are now starting to carry this type of formula. But this, dear friends, is something a little special. This velvet lipstick is BLACK.

HOLY SHIT, IT’S BLACK. Most people would never reach for a black lipstick in their lives, but as a used-to-be goth and still a person-mostly-in-black, a black lipstick in this formula is a huge sodding deal. I owed it to teenage me to have this lipstick. Black is such an unforgiving shade when it comes to formulas, and sadly most blacks are too creamy and don’t wear well or aren’t black enough. Liquid and gel liners can crack on the lips and often black eye pencils are either too smudgy or too hard to drag across your entire lip. Enter Topshop ‘Raven’:

 

OH GOD IT’S SO BLACK. And is shot through with just the right amount of iridescence to make it not look super flat. Guys, I’m so in love. If you’re not familiar with this type of product, it’s a cream in the tube and applies opawuely, drying to a super-long wearing matte finish. As expected, it’s dry but not drying, and doesn’t smudge or flake once set. I haven’t worn it long enough to comment thoroughly on it’s wear time, but if it’s anything like any of the brands that do this formula, it basically won’t budge unless you’re eating something really oily. I’ll do a look using this soon, but I was too excited to share!

You can get ‘Raven’ for £10 at topshop.com

Did I mention it’s black?!

Quickie Review: Topshop Lip Bullets in Joyride and Heartbeat

I’m not that up to speed with Topshop makeup – I’ve tried a few bits and bobs but I’d rather spend my pocket money on Topshop’s Freedom jewellery range so never really got stuck into the makeup. One of their lip bullets caught my eye on a lunch break recently so in the name of, err, science, I bought two to test!

Oh Topshop, please stop with the white packaging! It looks dead cute but already the tips of my pencils are covered in the product and I know they’ll pick up smeg from my makeup bag no matter what. I do like that these are twist-up pencils though, and that they have the classic lipstick bullet shape rather then being a blunt pencil.

Joyride:

Ohhh, how I love this colour! Helpfully described on the Topshop site as ‘RED,’ it’s slightly less blue-based than it looks here and gives the most beautiful ‘I’ve just eaten an ice lolly’ stain but still with heaps of shine. It’s very slick and smooth on the lips and wears a whole lot better over a lipliner, but it doesn’t bleed or feather. I get around an hour with the glossiness, and it leaves a stain. While it’s slick, I wouldn’t say it was moisturising, it just happily sits there!

Heartbeat:

I simply can’t accurately capture this one folks – sorry! Heartbeat is an orange-coral in the tube that translates a touch more pink on the lips. I’m actually disappointed it looks as pink as it does on me because in store it looked much more orange – I’ve seen other bloggers disappointed by this as well, so be warned. It’s described on the site as ‘peachy pink’ and that’s much more accurate. There’s something about this particular shade that looks almost frosty, even though there’s no shimmer – my lips are in good nick at the moment but this is not going to be a shade that’ll fare well on dry lips. While I do like it, I much prefer the other colour I bought, even though this is the one that caught my eye! Comfort and wear time is the same as Joyride, though.

 

While these are nothing special, they’re nice additions to a summer makeup bag and I really love the red colour! I think they’re fairly reasonably priced, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to collect them all, but if another colour caught my eye… oh well! ;)

Lip Bullets cost £8.00 and be found in store and on www.Topshop.com