Silk Naturals Lipstick Review – Crimson, Card Shark, Black Cherry, Bam and Broadway

You ordered a Silk Naturals lipstick review? I got a Silk Naturals lipstick review. Let’s talk business.

The mailman brought me a lovely present to wake up to this week: my Silk Naturals order from a couple of weeks back. Silk Naturals are an indie cruelty-free cosmetics company with a million and one vegan options. After my mega destash that I aim to post about sooner or later I found myself bereft of regular old red lipsticks. Finding a vegan lipstick – or any red vegan cosmetic product – in stores here for a decent budget is difficult. I live a two-hour public transport trip from Melbourne, too, so trekking out to Sephora on the off-chance I’d actually like any of the few Kat Von D Studded Kiss sticks they had in stock I swatched this time wasn’t an appealing plan. And even if I could find acceptable quality vegan goodies near me, a drugstore lipstick can cost $15-20 AUD.

So off to the indie websites I trotted. I’d known about Silk Naturals for a while but in the past had mostly been interested in their eyeshadow kits. In the past I’d had my beady little eyes set on a Naked palette but of course, they’re not vegan. Lo and behold, the shining light of Silk Naturals showed up like ‘hey, kid, I heard you like dupes’, opening its trenchcoat to reveal piles and piles of loose eyeshadow jars tumbling out like grains of rice from the bag you just knocked over, you clumsy fool, you (me).

But past-me was so caught up in the pretty colours to slap on my eyes that I neglected the pretty colours to slap on other parts of me. I knew about Bam, the black lipstick, but I owned Weirdo by Jeffree Star and hadn’t used it much at that point in time (oh how little I knew) so I didn’t bother to look much further.

Anyway, once the destash and the Great Pretty Shortage of 2016 rolled around, I found a whole host of things outside of eyeshadows that interested me. Strangely enough, products other than rainbow sparklies for lids are actually relevant! Who knew??

I hauled all sorts of things, from eyeshadows to eyeliners to face products, but I’d like to talk about the lipsticks today. Buckle up, buddies, because here comes a Silk Naturals lipstick review.

I bought four shades from the Vegan Organic Lipstick range – Crimson, Card Shark, Black Cherry and Bam. The organic vegan lippies are far from the only vegan lip products available but as luck would have it the shades I was most interested in all fell within that range. I also picked up a Slick Stick in the shade Broadway. There were no good swatches that I could see but the description’s promise of pixie sparkles intrigued me so I took a punt on it.

My overall impression of the Vegan Organic Lipsticks is that they apply like a dream – smooth and creamy, opaque in a swipe. They’re vibrantly pigmented. They’re also quite moisturising. For me and my dry chappy lips, that’s a blessing. I’d like to try them with a lip-liner as I’m a little clumsy and sometimes go outside the lines, but that’s not a fault on the product’s part. They’re easy to get to go exactly where you want them. As for lasting power, I don’t think they’re amazing, but I don’t think they’re terrible either. I’ll get into more detail on that later. I wouldn’t say they dry down as such, but they do settle down and become a little less creamy in a few minutes.

Quick note: every product featured here is vegan. Even though Broadway is not from the ‘Vegan Organic Lipstick’ range, it’s still listed as containing no animal products.

The first shade to hit my lips was Crimson, which is billed as a deep, vibrant, cool-toned red. I’d agree with that assessment. It’s supposed to be a dupe for MAC’s Russian Red but the only MAC product I’ve ever tried (and ever will try) was a primer handed down to me by my aunt who had no use for it, so I don’t know if that’s correct. Either way, it’s a lovely shade and everything I was hoping for colour-wise.

It lasted for maybe two and a half hours, but to be fair those were a harsh two and a half hours stuff to the brim with cups of tea, runny noses and tissues. My noodles for lunch finally killed it. Left over were a couple of determined little red patches, but not much else. Considering the rough first day it had, I was honestly impressed it hung around for as long as it did.

 

Moving right along to Card Shark, which to me just felt like a darker, deeper version of Crimson. It could just be how it pulls on me, but I think it’s a little more vibrant than the oxblood it’s described as on the website. At first as I applied it I was worried – little bits kept latching onto tiny dry patches on my lips and going super dark, but after popping my lips together a few times it all evened out. Though it’s not quite as pretty as Crimson, it’s still a gorgeous shade.

Card Shark is pinker than it lets on. It’s not overwhelming, but the subtle pink undertones are definitely there. This becomes more apparent as time wears on. I couldn’t really see them right after application, but after about an hour of wear it was bordering on cranberry. I think it’s a slightly cool-leaning lipstick, not quite as neutral as the website would have you believe. It was also beginning to get a little patchy after an hour. I hadn’t eaten anything this time and my hay fever had calmed right the f down so I wasn’t constantly wiping tissues right above my lips this time. That was a little disheartening after Crimson had been such a trooper through my abuse, but honestly it wasn’t neither a huge deal nor anything a quick touch-up wouldn’t fix.

By the time I got around to having dinner at two and a half hours of wear, my lipstick was on its last legs. It looked like a muted cranberry. Some parts were darker than others. Despite that, it actually survived quite a lot better through my oily mushroom and ale pie than Crimson did through my noodley lunch! I was still quite obviously wearing a dark red lipstick once I was through eating, though the lipstick did appear to be fondly thinking back on better times.

The next morning I chucked Cherry Black on. According to the site, it’s “a very dark, nearly black vampy plum with a hint of shimmer”. I wouldn’t say nearly black, but it is quite dark. Plum is right. Silk Naturals’ swatch makes it look like it pulls a lot redder than it actually does. It definitely has a reddish tone but it’s predominantly a deep, dark plummy purple. I dig it. I had no problems with unevenness as I applied it. Like the others, it went on pigmented and opaque with no effort on my part.

After maybe half an hour or forty five minutes I treated myself to a cup of tea. I was worried about how it’d look given just how much seemed to end up on my mug, but when I looked in the mirror it honestly looked pretty darn good! Not perfect, but good enough to get away with without any touch-ups yet. I was getting hungry though, so I cooked myself a bowl of noodles that would turn out to murder what was left of poor old Cherry Black. Sidenote, Cherry Black would make a neat name for a hardboiled private eye.

Once I’d polished off my noodles, there was barely anything left of the lipstick left anywhere but the rims of my lips. It did travel past the bottom of my lips, however, so if you don’t fancy your lippie going on a bit of a wander I don’t recommend wearing Cherry Black out to dinner. I didn’t notice it going walkabout earlier in the day, just when I ate, so I think that’s acceptable. I took it off after that and noticed that it does stain, though not enough to be worth taking a photo of.

So. Bam. Bam is black. Bam is creamy. Bam is glossy. Bam is awesome. Bam also gets all over my teeth for the first few minutes but nobody’s perfect. Bam stayed the shiniest, wettest and glossiest out of all the shades for the longest time. I had problems with strands of hair getting stuck on it as they misbehaved in the wind but only once did they actually pull the lipstick out of place, and that was definitely down to user error.

In terms of tone I think Bam is definitely a blue-black, but it’s only noticeable in certain lights. When you can’t see its slight blue undertones it looks like a true black. If you’ve been on the fence about getting a black lipstick because you don’t know if it’s for you, I’d recommend Bam. It’s affordable, for one, so you haven’t got much to lose. It’s also high quality and feels lovely on your lips – it won’t dry them out. It’s also richly pigmented so you won’t scare yourself away with sad and streaky looking application.

After about half an an hour of wear I noticed some very light feathering on my top lip and a little fading of the colour right where the centre of my top lip meets my bottom lip. The rest was still shiny and black as all get out, though. By the hour mark, unfortunately, it was starting to become patchy and I noticed a little smudging around my lip. It was still at the stage where popping off to the nearest mirror and fixing it up could save it, but it was obviously far from perfect.

By two hours, Bam was unsalvageable. I still like the product but it absolutely is short-wearing. If you’re only going to be out for a little bit, or you’ll be able to pop off to the bathrooms to adjust your makeup quite often, then I still recommend it as a product. However, if you need something reliable for the long haul, stick to a longwear liquid lipstick like Jeffree Star’s Weirdo.

I confess, I’d wanted to try out Broadway over top of it. When I first put on Crimson it was pretty apparent that wasn’t going to happen if Bam was anywhere near as creamy. Bam’s creamier so… yep. Not a chance.

Broadway is a tricky one to photograph, especially with a front-facing camera that’s not so hot on the details. I thought it would be clear with glitter, but it looks like more of a very, very sheer frosty pink when applied to my lips.

The glitter is honestly quite noticeable but manages not to look over the top or garish. The colours of the individual flakes tend towards the colour range of pink to warm yellow, from what I could see. They also seemed to be slightly iridescent. It’s a very pretty gloss and I wish I could’ve gotten a decent photo of it in all its magnificence. If all goes according to plan I’ll be upgrading my phone within the week and should have a much better camera, so if that can capture it I’ll update this post.

Surprisingly enough, Broadway was longer lasting than any of its opaque friends. It survived through my lunch of vegan penne bolognese leftovers and several cups of tea, sparkles and all.

Seeing as I couldn’t use it over Bam, I eventually tried Broadway over Weirdo. As Jeffree Star’s lipsticks are long lasting and dry right down to matte I figured it’d work a lot better than trying to force cream over cream.

This I could photograph (kind of). The results were brilliant and sort of made my mouth look like an oil slick. Some of Weirdo did rub off onto the Broadway stick. Over a dark base, Broadway’s glitter was infinitely more noticeable. It also had more of a blue sheen than it did over my bare lips.

Naturally, putting a creamier, glossier product on top of a matte liquid lipstick affected its resilience and wear time. This isn’t a complaint, but it is something to keep in mind. It stayed looking great for about an hour and a half, but it was a tricky hour and a half in which I drank quite a bit of water and had tissues on my face constantly. Another day, another lipstick fallen victim to the hardships of hay fever.

The thing with layering like this is that touch-ups end up pretty much impossible. You haven’t got many options for salvaging your Good Lips Gone Bad without wiping off and/or reapplying the whole thing when you’re wearing more than one product. It’d be easier if Broadway just wore off on its own but because of the nature of the products and the way they interact, the base colour wears off too.

Sadly, once things started going downhill, they went downhill fast. This would be a good combination to wear if you’re sure you won’t be out for much longer than an hour and a half. While it looks good, it looks fabulous. Pictures don’t do the sparkle and sheen justice. But when it’s bad, it’s really bad. If you wear it too long it’ll look like a mess.

On the whole, I found these Silk Naturals lipsticks to be of surprisingly high quality. Every one of the colours I tried is beautiful, even when they deviated from the descriptions or swatches provided by Silk Naturals themselves. They aren’t super long-lasting, set and forget style lipsticks that you can throw on at the start of the day and expect to remain flawless twelve hours later.

Conversely, if you’re only going to be out for a short while, or if you know you’ll be periodically able to duck off and fix any straying or fading lipstick, these Silk Naturals lipsticks are quite nice. They’re extremely comfortable to wear and deliver vivid, pretty colours. Not everyone is a fan of having to maintain their lipsticks and that’s completely reasonable – if you detest fixing your makeup, these are not the products for you! Broadway excepted. That one sticks around.

I’ll happily purchase more Silk Naturals lipsticks in the future. I plan to, actually, along with a few eyeshadows and a pressing kit to play around with. Sadly it will have to wait because I do try to make at least token attempts at being a Fiscally Responsible Real Adult and I’ve gone through the amount I want to let myself spend on makeup for a little while. Life is suffering etc.

Anyhow, there you have it: 2,500 odd words about lipstick. I hope you enjoyed reading this Silk Naturals lipstick review as much as I enjoyed writing it. Or, if not, that you at least got something out of it.