Lime Crime Wicked Review

I'm on the Wicked bandwagon guys! I drank the kool-aid and had to give it a go. I've never bought Lime Crime products before but was slowly falling in love with the gorgeous matte burgundy shade I'd been seeing on several beauty blogs and Youtube videos. A little digging and it turned out they were all Lime Crime's Matte Velvetines in Wicked.  

The normal retail price is $20 but I actually ended up buying it off of the Urban Outfitter website during a sale with 20% off which I was pretty pleased with. It has been sold out on the LC website for weeks so I was glad to be able to buy it elsewhere as I was hoping to try it out for holiday parties. 

When it finally came, the color was everything I'd hoped for. It's a gorgeous deep burgundy red that's very wearable and not TOO dark to come off as overly vampy. Pair it with an understated eye and your look is instantly glamified. 

The website describes it as being a matte burgundy-red and claims to be a "ground-breaking formula that goes on liquid and dries completely matte. Claims to be touch-proof, transfer-proof, long-wearing and utterly addictive."

The Pros: 

Once again, the color. It's a perfect fall/winter shade. Wear it every day with a simple eye look or glam it up by pairing it with a smoked out eye. 

It sets pretty quickly from liquid to matte and isn't too drying for your lips. 

Paired with a lip liner, is pretty long-lasting. 

The Cons: 

It's really not THAT long-wearing, especially if any liquid touches your lips after it's on. I played around with it a bit and had some trouble keeping it on my lips especially near the inner center where I got the dramatic color/no color when it rubbed off a bit between my lips. I fixed that by wearing it over a lip liner and once completely dried, wouldn't transfer, but if I took even a sip of water it would start moving around and transferring to the bottle or anything my lips touched. What worked best for me was applying it over lip liner and blotting it a tad with some tissue to make sure any excess formula was removed.  

The feeling on the lips isn't the greatest, it isn't especially drying but sort of feels like it is. It gives the grainy-don't try to move much feeling.

(wore this to Thanksgiving dinner, showing off the eye look I went with too!)

Overall I do really love the color and that alone is enough for me to continue wearing it, but it's a pretty difficult formula to get the hang of and feel comfortable in. I think if I were to wear it on a regular basis I'd get used to it, but I know I'd always be concerned about it transferring or smudging off my lips if I made any slip ups. 

I'd say comparing it to some other long-wearing formulas I've tried, I like the Make Up For Ever Aqua Rouge stains (which I made matte by blotting) more for staying power but would choose Lime Crime over the Sephora Luster Matte Long-Wear Lip Colors as it's got a better applicator making it less messy and easier to control. 

Final thoughts, is it worth buying?

Yes-ish. The color is to die for, but the Sephora lip colors mentioned above would definitely be a comparable less costly dupe if you don't mind working with the clunky applicator.

And our lovely little family all ready for Thanksgiving dinner! 

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

XOXOXO

J.Cat Beauty Wonder Lip Paint

I was at Ulta yesterday afternoon and was bummed over not finding the NYX matte lip creams I really wanted and was just about to leave when I spotted these beauties. I've been really wanting to try out the OCC Lip Tars for the longest time but could never justify the price tag for what I considered a novelty lip product. I love the pigmentation an intensity of the swatches I've seen on other blogs but $18+ for a difficult to apply and not very forgiving lip product just seemed silly to me. 

Luckily these babies had a beautiful $4.99 price tag and all inhibitions were gone! I walked out with 3 gorgeous shades and have swatched them below. 

Shade: Much Mucher

Shade: 2nd Impossible Thing

Shade: Red Potion

Much Mucher, a very light orangy-peach-nude shade. It applied probably the best of the 3, was really opaque and I really loved how it looked. 

2nd Impossible Thing, in the tube and the swatch made it look like an electric red, but it ended up applying a bit less vibrant. It ended up on the lips as a slightly transparent berry red. Still beautiful, but not really true to the swatch. 

Red Potion is a super deep plum/berry shade that applied again a little more transparent than I was expecting, but still bold enough. It was a little patchy so I think it would do better on me if I'd exfoliated my lips first as they were a little dry. Overall I LOVE the color, but don't love the need for prepping my lips before applying it. 

While I can't compare them to the OCC Lip Tars, I can say that I really enjoyed them and was pleasantly surprised by how wearable they were. I still think they're more work than they're worth but for a night out or just for fun, they're awesome!

XOXOXO

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Blue Hair Don't Care

So no huge surprise, but my plain brunette hair didn't last too long. I colored my hair from ginger/auburn to as close to my natural shade as I could back in August to get ready for my baby. I knew I wouldn't have time to upkeep the red any longer and I can't stand it when my roots get out of control. 

After being back to brunette for a few months and finally getting a handle on being a mom, I started getting restless with my hair color (surprise surprise). I decided on the color pretty impulsively. I was in the shower one afternoon and just thought, "hey, blue would be fun!" and ran out the next day to get the color. 

I've had my hair nearly every color of the rainbow at some point or another, but the only shade I was never successful with was blue. I attempted it back in my early 20's but hadn't lightened my hair enough an it turned patchy green due to all the brassiness still left over from the bleach job. I hadn't attempted it since, but finally felt confident that I could do it right. As fun as an all over blue would be, and believe me I'd totally do it if I had the time to upkeep it, I knew I needed to do something a little more subtle. 

Normally I'd have gone with Jerome Russell's Punky Colour hair dye as I've loved it in past dye jobs, but the store I went to only carried Manic Panic. I'll admit I've never actually used Manic Panic on myself before and after finishing the amount I have leftover I honestly will probably switch back to Punky Colour. It came out gorgeous, but these pictures are from just 2 washes later and the vibrancy has already faded quite a bit. Punky Colour always went a good full month for me before fading. 

I bleached 3 panels diagonally on the right (heavier) side of my head an 2 panels on the left. I made sure none of the panels went quite up to the roots and left a good 2-3 inches untouched at my part to cut down on the need to re-bleach since it'll just keep up as peekaboo pieces. Next time I'll make sure to add heat when the blue is processing to bump up the longevity but all in all I was really pleased with the initial results. The color was GORGEOUS, just wish it lasted a little longer. 

I'm super excited to have finally been able to get the blue in my hair I've always wanted and will definitely keep up with it for a while. I love it!

XOXOXOXO