Random Swatches 1

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Let's bring back random swatch posts!  It's been killing me, not being able to take blog photos (because of my back), but I was swatching a new lip liner the other day and thought, why don't I take 'candid' swatch photos? I can't get everything laid out neatly on a proper background, but I can photograph the back of my hand.  This is harking back to my early days of blogging before everything had to be so perfectly precise!

If you've been following my LOTD posts, you'll know I love lip pencils, so I thought I'd start with some of them.  These days I tend to use them with balms or gloss; my decades long love for lipstick has waned slightly in the past few years. All photos are taken on a (peely-wally) bare hand, indoors in natural light and absolutely no light/colour edits have been made to the pictures.      

From top to bottom; Morphe Signature Lip Pencil* in Rock Steady, MAC Lip Pencil* in Stone, Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil* in 506 Endless Cacao, Kylie Cosmetics Precision Pout Lip Liner* in Stone, MAC Lip Pencil* in Greige and Merit Signature Lip Sheer Lip Liner* in Tabac.  These are some of my most used liners, a lot are cool toned or at least don't turn orange on me (an issue I have with a lot of lip products and I hate orange with a passion).  Kylie Stone is actually closer to Greige rather than Stone by MAC.  The Morphe one is relatively new, it can be a tad too dark or intense sometimes.  The sheer formula of Merit, is so interesting and I bought Tabac immediately after buying Bespoke, as I loved it so much.  It's great for how I use them these days with a balm, as it's not a sharp precise line yet adds a base colour and some definition.  I finally took the plunge some months ago with the MUFE one, after debating which of their colours would turn orange on me and I therefore should avoid.  It was money well spent, I use it a lot.  

Now onto some I use less and honestly some really bad decisions were made here or rather companies are very good at duping you with their swatches, colour descriptions and product photos.

From top to bottom; Kylie Cosmetics Plumping Lip Liner* in Coconut, Chanel Le Crayon Levres* in 156 Beige Naturel, Kay Beauty Plumping HD Lip Liner in Dialogue and Matte Action Line & Fill Lip Pencil in Hype, Estee Lauder Double Wear 24h Stay-in-Place Lip Liner* in 008 Spice and Kosas Hotliner Hyaluronic Acid Contouring Lip Liner* in 100.  I don't hate the Kylie or Kosas, both just pull slightly too warm on my lips, for my liking.  I use Coconut a lot less than Stone (and honestly, prefer the wooden pencil formula) and Kosas was not as cool and light as I expected it to be.  The Chanel, I straight up hate.  Every time I think, "it won't be as bad as I remembered", I apply it and it's bordering on neon coral.  Nope! So many people recommended it too, a waste of money.  

Kay Beauty, wow, talk about taking liberties with your photos.  I get that they're an Indian founded brand, so I'm not exactly their target consumer, but they had a lot of (appealing) brown lip colours and I bought several things, including these two liners and they are hideous!  The twist-up Dialogue looked to be a medium brown, rosewood type when they showed it on the lips, then it was a light grey-ish beige in their swatch (not on skin).  The end of it, you can see above, looks more mahogany, but the result on me is tomato soup lips.  Bold, dark orange.  Ugly.  I can't see me ever using it.  Countries that can return tested makeup don't know how lucky they are!  Hype is marginally better but nowhere near the cool-toned taupe they show in their swatches (they have arm swatches on light, medium and dark skin tones, but the light must be far, far darker than me). Again it's grey-toned in the images online and definitely a warm brown on me and both are even warmer on the lips than my hand.  EL Spice, is just too much for me, too bold, too heavy and with orange/red undertones.  I just don't reach for it.    

So, if you are looking for warm, Autumnal liners, buy all the ones I dislike (!), but I'd highly recommend anything from the first set of swatches if you're looking for cool tones. The MAC, Kylie, Merit and MUFE are constantly on rotation with me.