NYX Black Label Lipsticks: First Thoughts + Swatches

NYX is one of those brands we've mentioned a time or two on the blog and because it's not that widely available here - though Flair stocks it - I'd never actually tried anything.  For shame. Brights, decent pigments and affordable prices are what marks it out and its lipsticks and shadows in particular get tons of love.

I love lipstick. Oh yes. Yes I do. So I headed to Cherryculture.com and ordered three of NYX's Black Label bullets. On sale for $6, this is the brand's most expensive lip offering and the shade choice is pretty much right up my street.  I bought Citrine (a vivid orange), Hot Pink (er, hot pink) and Revamped (a bright, true red). None of these are new shades to me but they're my fail-safe colours, so I decided to stick with what I knew for my first foray.

I ordered them on the 23rd November and they arrived to me from the US by the 9th of December, which I didn't think was too bad considering the recent bad weather, the fact I hadn't paid for any sort of expedited shipping and they may also have been sitting in the post office for a few days - I get a lot of work-related beauty parcels so they tend to hold them in the sorting office for me until there's a pile to pick up.

So, what are they like? In my enthusiasm, I used two before I took the shots, so apologies for that. These are super-bright, smooth, creamy and very very opaque with a satin finish - though out of the three it's Hot Pink that's actually the least impactful and smooth textured. I may have just gotten a not-so-great bullet, though. Citrine is gorgeous in wear, as is Revamped.

And there's one high-end lipstick range I just can't get out of my head as a comparison.

These are a dead-ringer for YSL's Rouge Volupte line.  Ok so the shades don't 100% correspond and packaging certainly doesn't, but the formulation of Black Label lipsticks is very similar.  I'd definitely pick up some more of these I think - at $6 a go plus $9.69 shipping, you can buy three and have 'em posted for less than the price of one Rouge Volupte, and I call that pretty damn good value. There are something like 111 colours available too, so you're seriously spoiled for choice.