Tag Archives: Bite Beauty

Bite Butter Cream Lipstick in “Marzipan”: A Review

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“I shouldn’t think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.”- Dodie Smith 

Bite Handcut Butter Cream Lipstick marzipan

Bite beauty marzipan lipstick review

Bite hand cut bullet lipstick marzipan

Bite butter cream lipstick on dark skin marzipan nw45 woc nc50

Top- bright daylight swatch, bottom- indoor swatch with flash

Bite butter cream lipstick in marzipan on dark skin nw45 nc50 woc swatch

“Marzipan” paired with a light application of MAC “chestnut” liner

I’m a big fan of Bite’s lipsticks and my interest was piqued when they rolled out their “hand cut” butter cream lipsticks a few months ago. Bite posits that cutting the lipstick bullet straight across rather than at an angle results in a creamier lipstick and by removing the waxy outer layer of lipstick, they can get straight to the creamier core. I’d have to say that they are absolutely correct.

I picked up the shade “marzipan”, a milky chocolate, and it is most definitely one of the creamiest lipsticks I own. It’s the perfect nude shade for my complexion and I love that it needs very little work to look good on my lips. It has surprisingly good staying power for such a creamy lipstick and it feels wonderfully comfortable on the lips. I usually wear it with just a touch of brown lipliner and I’m good to go.

However, I have two gripes about this lipstick. Firstly, the butter cream lipsticks are $28 each rather than the $24 Bite usually charge for their lipsticks. Granted, we are given slightly more luxurious magnetic packaging to justify this price increase but the decision to charge $4 more is really baffling.

Secondly, the shape of this lipstick is just awkward. I have pretty big lips and I have trouble reaching the corners of my lips and my cupid’s bow whenever I wear this lipstick. I’ve had to employ the use of a lip brush on many an occasion. It really makes me wonder how customers with thinner lips will fare.This leads me to wonder whether the shape is just a gimmick or if it really contributes to the creaminess of the lipstick.

However, as customary for Bite products, the lipstick is full of wonderful food-grade ingredients like shea butter, almond butter, pomegranate butter, argan oil, etc. and it is also organic. So if natural ingredients are important to you, you can most definitely rest easy.

Despite a couple of misgivings, I still highly recommend this lipstick. It comes in 8 neutral shades and they are all extremely flattering for most skin tones. Yes it’s pricy, but I think it’d be a nice product to pick up if you wanted to treat yourself.

Bite butter cream lipsticks are $28 and are available at Sephora.

Nana Adomah

Collective Haul ft. NARS, Make Up For Ever, MAC, Kat Von D, Cover FX, Smashbox and more!

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“You’re either in it for the long haul or you’re not” – Crystal Gayle

I filmed a haul video over on YouTube and wanted to share. Look out for reviews on a lot of these products soon!

Nana Adomah

Best Makeup of 2014

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IMG_19412014 was a great year for beauty. I discovered new brands, I fell in love with old ones and I become more discerning about the products I purchased. I tried to avoid unnecessary hype where I could and I also learned to “shop my stash”. I’ve been trying to compile this best of 2014 list for a few weeks now and I’ve been struggling to cut the list down to a manageable length. I love sharing beauty discoveries and I also love to read recommendations from other people so I’ve decided to split my list into makeup and skincare.

Without further ado, here are my favourite makeup products of 2014:

Foundation: I tried a LOT of foundations this year and I have to say that my number one pick has to be the BECCA ultimate coverage complexion creme. This one-pump-wonder has the most amazing pigmentation and coverage, stays put the whole day, and still looks like skin. I will definitely be doing a dedicated review very soon.

Honourable mentions: Cover FX natural finish oil-free foundation, Dior Star foundation, Lancôme nude miracle, Make Up For Ever HD foundation.

Concealer: This was my easiest pick out of my list and the honour goes to the NARS radiant creamy concealer. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this. It covers blemishes beautifully without looking cakey and it has great staying power. My only gripe is the price but this is definitely one product that lives up to the hype.

Honourable mentions: Amazing Concealer, MAC studio finish concealer, Smashbox BB for eyes

Eyebrows: I flirted with MANY brow products in 2014 but the one that rose to the top is the Make Up For Ever Aqua Brow. The tiniest amount of this gel fills in brows perfectly and it really doesn’t budge once it’s dry. Anastasia Beverly Hills’ dipbrow pomade got all the hype but this old faithful is a better product imho. It does everything dipbrow does but better. Anastasia’s brow wiz was another product I loved but I couldn’t give it the top spot because there’s far too little product in the pencil for the price.

Honourable mentions: Hourglass arch brow sculpting pencil, Anastasia Beverley Hills Brow Wiz, Tarte Amazonian Clay waterproof brow mousse

Eyeliner: For pencil eyeliners, my heart unequivocally belongs to the Marc Jacobs highliner gel eye crayon in “blacquer”. I’m a contact lens wearer so I don’t muck about when I’m looking for an eyeliner. This liner is deliciously creamy, intensely black and Does. Not. Budge. once it dries. I used to carry my eyeliner in my makeup bag so I could touch up during the day but that is now thankfully a thing of the past.

For gel/ liquid liners, I have to give the nod to Benefit’s They’re Real push up liner. I HATED this with a passion when I first got it but something told me to give it another chance I couldn’t be more pleased. Once I learned how to use it properly, it made doing a winged liner so easy and it truly does not budge until you want it to.

Honourable mentions: NARS larger than life long wear eyeliner in “via veneto”, Stila stay all day waterproof liquid eyeliner, MUFE Aqua black, Kat Von D ink liner,

Blush: I stuck with my beloved NARS and Sleek blushes this year and my most used shades were NARS’ “Liberté”, “Torrid”, and “Dolce Vita”, and Sleek’s “sunrise” and “coral”. BECCA’s blush in “songbird” muscled its way in towards the end of the year and it’s definitely a shade I believe everybody should own.

Honourable mentions: Kat Von D ” heartagram”, Make Up For Ever HD blush #515- tangerine

Mascara: I went mascara crazy this year. I began to appreciate why higher-end mascaras cost so much after I flirted with Dior, Lancome, YSL, and Givenchy. MUFE’s smoky lash and old favourites like Benefit’s They’re Real did not disappoint. This category is very hard but I have to give the edge to the Givenchy Noir Couture 4 in 1 mascara over the Lancome Grandiose. It gave me length, it gave me volume, it gave me durability, and it gave me conditioned lashes. If only it was a little easier on the pocket….

Honourable mentions: YSL Babydoll, Maybelline Volum’ Express The Falsies, Dior New Look, Lancome Grandiose, Givenchy Noir Couture Volume

Eyeshadow: This was surprisingly easy for me as the eyeshadow I used the most was the old-stye Make Up For Ever eyeshadow in #162. I used it as a crease colour, as a transition colour, and as the star of my favourite brown smoky eye look.

Honourable mentions: ColourPop super shock eyeshadows in “cricket” and “so quiche”, MAC “woodwinked”, NARS “Persia”, NARS dual intensity shadow “callisto, UD “mugshot” and “blackout”

Lipstick: It’s extremely difficult to pick just one lipstick but I loved the hell out of my Urban Decay Revolution lipstick in “shame” (check out my review here) and my Hourglass opaque rouge liquid lipstick in “Icon”.

Honourable mentions: Bite “vento” lipstick, MAC “flat out fabulous”, NARS “damage” and “Dragon Girl” lipsticks.

Lipgloss: This has to be another tied category with the winners being the Dior Addict Fluid Stick in #575 “Wonderland” and the NARS “Priscilla” lipgloss. They both had great pigment and stayed really well on my lips without any stickiness (my pet peeve).

Honourable mention: They arrived too late to fully make it to the top but the Smashbox lip lacquers are fantastic. YSL gloss volupte #49, Buxom full-bodied lipgloss in “Dolly”.

So there you have it. This list was surprisingly difficult to put together but I have to say that I’m really loving my collection at the moment. I’m hoping to buy (FAR) less this year but I’m excited to see some truly innovative makeup. Let me know if you’d like an in-depth review of any of these products and keep an eye out for part 2 featuring my favourite skincare!

Nana Adomah

Collective Haul: Lime Crime, NARS, Marc Jacobs, MUFE, Carol’s Daughter and more!

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I’ve been shopping way more than I should have been so I thought I’d make the best of it and film my first haul video.

It’s quite a long one so grab yourself a cuppa and enjoy!

Made any sneaky buys lately? Let me know in the comments below.

Nana Adomah

It’s Electric!- Urban Decay Electric Palette Review

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Urban Decay Electric Palette

FOMO (fear of missing out) is a real condition, I’m convinced. I snatched up this beauty about 3 weeks ago when I saw it on the shelves at Sephora and I’ve worn it almost everyday since. Yes the Naked palettes are nice and they have been stupendously successful for Urban Decay but I’m so glad that they’ve gone back to their roots with their new Electric palette. My very first quality eyeshadow palette was the original Deluxe Palette from Urban Decay about 7 years ago and I haven’t looked back since! Urban Decay were originally known for their crazy brights and bold pigments and they are back in full force with the Electric palette.

Urban Decay Electric Palette

Look at all of those glorious colours! I’m very impressed with this palette and the pigmentation is excellent. We are presented with 10 shades in the palette and they are:

revolt– a glittery silver, gonzo– a matte blue with a hint of turquoise, slowburn– an orange red matte with floating micro shimmer, savage– a hot pink matte, fringe– a metallic teal, chaos– a matte cobalt blue with floating micro shimmer (one of the standouts of the Vice palette), jilted– a slightly shimmery fuchsia with a blue shift, urban– a metallic medium purple, freak– a metallic neon green, and thrash– a chartreuse matte with floating micro shimmer (an exact dupe for NARS ‘rated R’).

Slowburn, savage, jilted and urban stain the skin slightly and they required more effort to remove. Urban Decay included a little note about these colours in the box which indicates that they are not intended for the immediate eye area. As usual, people have kicked up a fuss about nothing and I’ve used all these colours with no ill effect so just use your own judgment is what I say. Here is the company’s official statement regarding this issue:

“We created the Electric Pressed Pigment Palette with artistry in mind. Using pressed pigments was the only way for us to create heavily saturated brights with the intense pigment load we craved. Traditional eyeshadow formulas just wouldn’t cut it. To achieve shades like these, we started with our existing Eyeshadow formula and modified it to create a new Pressed Pigment formula.

Everywhere but the U.S., the Electric Palette is an eyeshadow palette. Because of a technicality, in the U.S. it’s considered a multi-use artistry palette. To get the most out of this palette, experiment and see what works for you. You can use the Electric Palette all over (and that’s where the creativity comes in!).

A few shades contain a colorant that has not yet been approved for the use around the immediate eye area. However, this restriction only applies in the U.S.; in every other country where Urban Decay is sold, these shades are approved for use around the eyes.

Bottom line? We didn’t want to limit the Electric Palette to eyeshadow. It’s an artistry palette with unlimited possibilities! How you use these shades is up to you. (And no matter where you use them, you’ll get insane color payout.)“

So there you go.

Urban Decay electric palette dark skin swatch

The colours swatch easily on my skin, even the mattes which can tend to disappear on darker skin tones. I think the fact that most of the mattes have a slight floating micro-shimmer contribute to their creaminess. The micro particles don’t really show up on the skin but they do contribute to a happier blending experience. I own the original Vice palette and the chaos in this palette is better in my opinion. I have no idea if they reformulated the colour but I feel as though it’s slightly more pigmented here. Chaos is a beautiful colour but I do wish that they’d only had chaos OR gonzo. The palette has quite a few blueish shades and I think that gonzo is one blue too many. I wish they’d replaced it with a bright yellow and it would have been just about perfect. I was initially unsure about the purpose of revolt as well but I’ve seen a few people do some interesting things with the shade.

The palette also comes with a very decent double-ended brush and the smaller end works really well as a liner brush. Both ends have quite stiff bristles which is great for the nature of the eyeshadows as they lay down colour better.

The packaging is also a winner in my book as it’s non bulky and the case opens up to a large mirror. The hinge ensures that the mirror stays where you want it to and the magnetic closure is very secure.

Now on to how the colours look on my face!

Urban Decay Electric palette FOTD dark skin

“Urban” all over the lid, smoked out with a matte black shadow and “fringe” on my lower lash line. I also added Urban Decay’s moondust eyeshadow in “glitter rock” on the centre of my lid for some added sparkle. Lips: “Vento” lipstick (Bite Beauty) Foundation: Cover FX cream foundation in N100 Powder: Mineralize Skin Finish in “dark” and “dark deep” (MAC) Brows: Aqua Brow #30 (Make Up For Ever) Eye liner: “blacquer” liner (Marc Jacobs) Mascara: Diorshow New Look mascara in black (Dior)

Urban Decay FOTD ELECTRIC dark skin swatch

Are you as in love with the Electric palette as I am? If you’re undecided, the palette is a permanent addition so you have plenty of time to make up your mind. The palette retails for $49 and can be found at Sephora, Ulta, and on the Urban Decay website. Let me know your thoughts!

Nana Adomah

Brand Focus: Bite Beauty

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Bite Beauty lipsticks

Bite Beauty is a brand I only came across last year and in this short time, they’ve yet to disappoint me. They make some of the most comfortable lipsticks I own. When I say “comfortable”, I mean you hardly feel as though you are wearing any lipstick at all when you have them on. They are very moisturizing and the pigment packed into each tiny bullet of lipstick is insane.

Bite Beauty is an all-natural company and each lip product is packed with all kinds of food-grade level goodness, hence the name Bite. The lipsticks are individually hand-crafted and they contain great ingredients like shea butter, manuka honey, argan oil, grapeseed oil, etc. The lipsticks also contain resveratrol, which “fights free radicals with potent long-term antiaging benefits”. Each Bite lipstick has the same amount of resveratrol  found in five glasses of red wine! Additionally, Bite Beauty products are free from parabens, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, synthetic dyes, petrochemicals, phthalates and triclosan.

Bite Beauty lipstick bullets

My Bite lipstick collection isn’t huge but it’s well-loved. I have the luminous creme lipsticks in vento (a bubblegum pink), tannin (a burgundy), and the limited edition VIB Rouge mini lipstick made for Sephora VIB Rouge card holders. I also recently purchased the two luminous creme lipstick duos in neutral and vivid. The neutral comes with lychee (a very light neutral pink) and musk (a pinky brown), while the vivid comes with palomino (a vibrant magenta) and violet (a pinkish purple). I also have a mini of the cashmere lipstick cream in sancerre (a bright fuschia with red undertones).

From top-bottom: musk, lychee, violet, palomino

From top-bottom: musk, lychee, violet, palomino

The mini duos are a great way to try out the Bite lipsticks in a cute and portable package. As you can see from the swatches, the pigmentation’s insane and they just feel so nice on the lips. They are a great price at $12 each and since each regular-sized Bite lipstick is $24, you can try out two colours for half the price of one! Continue reading →