Lime Crime: Candyfutureretrorainbowaganza.

Finally, it's here. The...

_______________________________________

Boring Disclaimer Stuff

Although my original Lime Crime review was pretty impartial (though, disappointed), after witnessing what the company's done since, it's incredibly hard for me to try and be impartial. Come on, you know I'm not. I've never delved into the company figure head's personal history or thrown rumours around, but I'm not a fan of the company, and will never shop with them because I think their conduct has been unethical. I'm biased, I know it, you know it, I'm not going to pretend I'm not. What I will do, however, is provide the most thorough (read: long) illustrated review of them I can, so you can decide which parts of it are influenced by my personal feelings for the company, and which parts are just my experience with a lipstick. (That sounded dirty, didn't it?)

There aren't many thorough reviews of Lime Crime's new lipstick line (you know, the one they switched all their focus to after the whole repackaging thing?), most I've seen tend to be filled with paragraphs of copy-pasted company blurb and then a few sentences on how they were sent the item to review for free, and yes, they did find it stained their lips, but hey, that's a good thing! It means it lasts longer!

I don't have anything against bloggers reviewing free press samples - I've received/reviewed a fair few, myself - I just dislike reviews which are 90% company material and 10% personal opinion. I'm made more suspicious by the fact that Lime Crime have an affiliate program, so bloggers who encourage people to buy their products can be financially rewarded for it. This, coupled with the known fact that negative reviews are not approved on the Lime Crime shop (go on, try leaving one) makes me feel iffy.

For disclosure purposes, the lipsticks I'm reviewing today, I didn't shell out my cash on - they were donated by a lovely reader, Lo, for review.
Oh, in case it wasn't obvious enough by the sheer fact that this is my personal blog, all opinions stated herein are just that, my opinion.

_______________________________________

Here it is, in all its pinky-purple holographic unicorn glory. Lime Crime's lipsticks come in 10 different colours, proclaimed in various bits of copy as being unique and edgy and very highly pigmented. Here's what they have to say about them:

"...a lipstick that gives you tube-to-lips colors in one stroke! In typical Lime Crime fashion, this lippy is bursting with pigment for criminally bright, opaque results. Smooth, creamy formula is long-wearing but won't dry out your lips."

Lo kindly sent me two colours -

• Great Pink Planet - "Bright pastel pink; think strawberry milkshake in a tube!"
• No She Didn't - "Opulent bubblegum-blue for those who know that blue lipstick is FASHION, not Halloween!"

Website

As ever, the Lime Crime website looks gorgeous. Their brand identity is strong, it's well designed and easy to navigate. They use an integrated cart system so checking out is easy and generally hassle-free.
A small bug-bear is that when asked if their products are vegan, they say about the lipsticks that they're free from all animal products except beeswax. So that's a no, then, they're not vegan. Why not just say that, instead of trying to sell it like they're, 'well, I mean they're almost vegan'?

The lipsticks all have little stories to accompany the shade names, which is nice, and there's photographs of them on lips and in the tubes. Unfortunately, Lime Crime swatches are generally considered to just be photoshopped on instead of being genuine. I'm going to go out on a limb and agree with that.
Hey, count the identical pairs of lips in this swatch shot, which was used for promoting the line pre-launch.

Photo: proud property of Limecrimemakeup.com

Lime Crime also don't allow any negative reviews of their products to appear on the website. I've tried myself, and know a few others who've tried, to leave fair but generally negative product reviews there, and somehow they never get approved.

Packaging

A lot is said about this little tube. Some say it looks like childish play make-up, others say they love it. Personally, I love it. I love the purpleish-pink shade, I think the holographic unicorn is nicely done, as it's heat-stamped, and the whole tube is really great, high quality packaging which my sources in the industry tell me almost certainly cost a lot more to produce than the lipstick itself. People have said it's very similar to MAC's Heatherette lipstick packaging, and yes, it is, but it's still pretty.

The one thing that bugs the crap out of me though, is the size. The tube is huge, chunky, and just unnecessarily thick. It means it'd take up a lot more room in my make-up bag than a standard sized lipstick, and I think perhaps its size is what can make it look more like a novelty toy than a $16 cosmetic.

Re-Packaging

They're not repackaged Stargazer. Before the lipsticks came out, there was some speculation (I stress this word, because I never saw anyone saying 'they're this', I saw people saying 'I wonder if they're this' but Xenia, in one of her interviews, accused us of accusing her (still following?) of selling repackaged lipsticks) that they might be, but they clearly aren't. Judging from the product quality and the lipstick ingredient list, my sources in the industry tell me that it's a pretty generic stock formula, so likely private label with some revisions. But then, Xenia never claimed she makes these with her own two hands (unlike, for instance Morgana Minerals, who do). I do certainly believe she's had some input in their creation though, because that seems to be the case when I look at how the lipsticks perform.

Promises & Product

The lipsticks are described as giving one-stroke opacity, being richly pigmented, long-wearing, creamy, and non-drying. They live up to some of this.

Pigmentation - They're definitely pigmented. Very pigmented. One-stroke opacity wasn't a problem, I could get a lot of colour out with a little effort. Some of them are too pigmented, and the stronger colours like the blue, the red, the fuchsia, will stain your lips after about half an hour. Some people like that in a lip product, I personally don't, because I like to wear different colours each day and don't want yesterday's blue lip colour clinging to me when I want a nude lip. But they live up to that, they're definitely opaque and have great colour pay-off.

No She Didn't on me after exfoliating and priming my lips. Not as thick/drying as Great Pink Planet, but it still showed up cracks in my lips more than I'd like.


After No She Didn't wore off (after an hour or so) and after cleaning my face to try and get it off, my lips stayed vaguely zombie-smurf-like.

Formula - Here's where they fall down. They don't apply or feel like a $16 lipstick, they feel like a $2 lipstick. I think my super-cheap NYX lipsticks have a vastly better formula. I own hundreds of lipsticks from different brands, and in terms of formula, this is without doubt the worst I've tried. I think it comes from them being over-pigmented. They go on very thick, in some cases stodgy, and cake my lips. Although I could get opaque colour with one stroke, it took a lot more work to get even colour, because the thick formula doesn't apply very evenly. It's visibly thick and cakey on my lips, even with one or two strokes.

Great Pink Planet on me after exfoliating and priming my lips.
Thick, cakey and drying, and it shows up every little flaw.

I also noticed it was very drying, contrary to their blurb, and it accentuated all the fine lines and cracks in my lips. Even positive reviews have said this about them. They're workable, but I'd need to first exfoliate my lips, use balm, blot, then use a lip primer, the lipstick, and a gloss over it to get the kind of even coverage I get with say, a MAC lipstick, and personally I think that's far more work than I expect if I'm paying $16 a tube.

Some of them... not so unique.

Colour Range - I'd consider this the only reason to buy one, personally, unless you have a real weakness for unicorn packaging. They do come in a nice range of bright, unusual colours. Some are more unique than others, and some aren't unique at all and are easily duped, but personally, I have a small obsession with finding the right lilac lipstick. There aren't many out there, and D'lilac and Airborne Unicorn both look like lovely colours. If they were cheaper, (or sold by anyone else - I won't give these guys my money) I think I'd consider buying them and just deal with the bad formula, because those colours aren't readily available elsewhere, so in that instance, Lime Crime really have hit the mark.

Duplicates & Alternatives

I've only tried two Lime Crime lipsticks, so I just tried to find alternatives for the ones I had. For Great Pink Planet, I didn't have to look further than my own make-up drawer.

This would be one of the 'not so unique' ones. Which is fine, I mean, pink is pink, right? This kind of pastel pink is clearly not a new idea and has certainly been done before - better, in my opinion - by other companies. That being the case, though, I really wish that Lime Crime would stop acting like they were the first person to ever discover colour. (On that subject, someone needs to point out that the 'army of beige' lipsticks she pictured are actually mauve. Anyway.)

So, Great Pink Planet is very, very easily dupable. It's almost indistinguishable from MAC Saint Germain, except it's very slightly warmer rather than the cooler, more blue-toned MAC version. The more affordable dupe is Stargazer 119, which is considerably more sheer but also a lot more moisturising and slightly glossy. Because it's sheerer, however, it comes out slightly pinker and warmer on the lips, influenced by your natural lip colour.

Lime Crime - Great Pink Planet


MAC - Saint Germain


Stargazer - 119

Both the MAC and Stargazer versions looked much nicer on my lips, applied better, and wore better. They felt much nicer on, I've always loved MAC's lipstick formula and I think it's one of the best out there, particularly when it's $2 cheaper than a tube of Lime Crime. Stargazer is a UK brand easily obtained on eBay for around $3-4 a tube, so both dupes are cheaper than the Lime Crime lipstick with, in my opinion, a vastly superior formula.
All lip swatches used the same preparations - exfoliation, balm, lip primer.

Because I know a lot of you are going to ask - MAC Saint Germain is Amplified Creme from the Sugarsweet Collection, although it's permanent in the UK. As far as I know, it's limited and thus not available from MAC in the US anymore, but if I'm wrong, please correct me.

On to the second lipstick, No She Didn't.

Blue lipstick isn't a new idea, either. Fyrinnae do bright blue lip products, MAC have done bright blue, Stargazer do blue, NYX do blue, well - a lot of companies make blue lipstick. The particular shade of blue is quite unique to Lime Crime, however.

No She Didn't is a bright, clear, and pale bubblegum blue. It's a blue I'd like in an eyeshadow, actually, because I think it's a nice candy-ish clear shade. Most blue lipsticks tend to be a bit darker, or more metallic. I wasn't able to find an incredibly close match, but I did find an alternative with a superior formula in the same family of blue, but a bit darker and more primary, less bubblegum.

Left: Lime Crime No She Didn't.
Right: Morgana Minerals Serenity.

As you can see, they're both similar shades of blue, the same kind of brightness and overall hue, but No She Didn't is much lighter, whereas Serenity is a bit brighter and closer to a primary blue. If you wanted to try a bright blue lipstick but were concerned No She Didn't might be too pale and wash you out, Serenity's probably a good bet.

Lime Crime No She Didn't, with drying, thick stodginess.

Slightly metallic Morgana Minerals Serenity, which I think looks a lot better on my lips.
It certainly feels a million times nicer on.

Back when Lo sent me her lipsticks, she requested that I try Morgana Minerals' vegan lipsticks, which are widely reputed online, and asked me to review them and let her know if they were what Lime Crime's was supposed to be. They are. I've featured a guest review here saying much the same thing, and will soon post up my own review for Morgana lipsticks, but for now I'll tell you to believe the hype. They manage to be beautifully richly pigmented, in an array of bright and unusual colours, and they're an absolute pleasure to apply. Smooth, rich, not drying, not thick or stodgey, just exactly what a lipstick should be. I didn't notice any staining with Morgana's Serenity, either, and a full-size tube of this tube is cheaper at $10. It's also vegan, whereas Lime Crime's lipsticks contain beeswax.

The Nutshell Bit

Overall, they're not completely awful.
The concept behind them is great, the colour payoff is great, the shade range available is great, although some are not nearly as unique as claimed and the formula is absolutely horrible. I don't like how they feel or look on, but with a lot of preparation and a nice gloss, you can achieve a nice finish with them.
There's no way in hell they're worth $16, considering everything else available, and the high-quality packaging, I'd say maybe $5-8 would be more reasonable. The fact that they cost more than a MAC lipstick is ridiculous. But, if you're desperate for one that specific colour and can't find a dupe, they are at least workable, although not the quality you'd expect for the cash.

Price: $16
Where?: Lime Crime's website. I won't link to it.
Look & Feel: 4/5 Great quality quirky packaging, although chunky and big.
Quality: 0/5 The most horrible lipstick formula I've ever tried.
Value: 0/5 The asking price is far too high for the bad formula, especially next to superior, cheaper competitors.
Variety: 4/5 Some are not-so-unique, but there are a few unusual, lovely shades among them.

Overall: 2/5 Because they are usable, and not generic, but way overpriced.
Would I Purchase?: No, but then, I wouldn't ever buy anything from Lime Crime. Given what I know about the company, I wouldn't ever support them. That said, I have bought D'lilac off a fellow blogger who bought a few to review, to try it out.

2/5 internets.