Read ALL about my review process including how I take swatches, photos, and more here.
Bear with me today as I woke up with my throat feeling like it’s on fire :x I also realized that some of these colors are duplicates (like the same exact lip color twice—I took these pics like two or three weeks ago and hadn’t realized it at the time). But hey, it’s here and it’s still spectacular. And my throat better settle down because I have stuff to do this weekend…lol.
So as you know, Black Opal Beauty is a quality drugstore makeup line geared to women with deeper skin tones. You can check out more posts from me on the brand here. The brand sent over a ton of their lip colors and since I know the struggle of shopping the drugstore aisle (or living in an area where the drugstore doesn’t even sell brands that suit your skintone), I swatched them :D
So the lipsticks are pretty standard when it comes to how long they last—like most lipsticks you’ll get about 4-5 hours of wear before they start to fade with of course deeper and brighter colors lasting longer because they tend to stain the lips. What I like about these unlike some drugstore formulas is that they don’t smell all drugstore-y. These smell like Cap N Crunch Berries…lol. I did find that some of the caps of the lipsticks tend to slide off and since the name of the color is on the cap (as opposed to the bottom of the base of the lipstick) it makes it a little hard to keep track of some of the shade names particularly if you have a lot of them like I do.
Now onto the glosses—these are pretty opaque of course with the lighter shades being less so. Wear is pretty average with lip glosses—typically about 3-4 hours before it might start to fade. These are pretty on their own or perfect for layering.
(showing swatches in different lighting so you can see the shimmer better in the glosses)
These Dual Lip Glosses are fun—my fave is the Matinee Mocha because the opaque end if a really pretty pinky brown nude for darker skin. The other end is a shimmery silver gloss that you can add to the center of the lips for dimension. Star Attraction (the other duo) is super metallic-y. I’m personally not a fan of copper and golden lip colors (at least not now) but these are perfect if you do.
This is EPIC! Why come every color look good on you! I have a few black opals, I need more!
Danielle,
Are your lips two toned? My lips are too and I found that the last batches of lip glosses all looked very much alike. Do you use a lip primer to even your lips before applying lipstick? I heard that NYX milk pencil is a great lip primer.
http://www.xojane.com/beauty/use-this-450-eye-pencil-to-make-your-lipstick-last
Author
Hey Ericka!
My bottom lip is pinkier than my top—it doesn’t bother me at all so no, I don’t use a lip primer or pencil. And if I did use one then someone would comment that doing so would alter the way the lip color looks when I do swatches. The last batch will of course look similar because the lip colors are similar and quite sheer and also light in color plus the lighting and my camera picks it up that way. Also swatching lip colors back to back like this irritates my lips beyond belief but I do it because people have asked me to do them time and time again. (In the words of Jay-Z “I do this for my culture” lol)
There’s also swatches on my arm though of the same exact colors.
Ooooo that makes perfect sense. My lips are two toned too. I love how the lipstick looked but I didn’t like how the last batch of lip glosses were so sheer. I could hardly tell the difference. Geez it didn’t occur to me that doing all those swatches would irritate your lips. :-(
Thank you so much for doing this post. I love your blog.
Author
Yeah—sheerer glosses are best for layering. And yes, the taking off and putting on of back to back lip colors can feel like someone lit a match on my lips…lol.
Thanks for reading :)
I have a few of these and they look very different on me. I going to try Violine and Star Attraction….maybe. P.S. You do A LOT for your culture. Thanks!
I see quite a few shades that I want lol. I can’t wait to catch these in my local drugstores! I hope you feel better too!
The lipsticks seem very sheer even though they are nice colors.