OCC Lip Tar Swatches

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics lip tars were something that I really wanted to get while in New York. I bought two from Sephora and visited the OCC store to get the rest of the colours I yearned for. I bought six tars in total: Black Dahlia, Pagan, Black Metal Dahlia, Anita, Sebastian and Techo Pagan. Here's swatches of each and my thoughts on them.

Pagan, Techno Pagan, Black Dahlia, Black Metal Dahlia, Anita and Sebastian. Swatched on clean skin with no primer.

Pagan is a gorgeous deep purple. I've never seen a purple lipstick quite as dark and opaque. On my lips Pagan wants to feather a bit, so I use Black Dahlia or Mac Nighmoth liner with it. The liners are more red than Pagan, but blend in nicely.

Black Dahlia (no picture on lips yet, sorry!) is a deep, dark red. I feel the need to apply it thickly to achieve a darker shade, but this makes Dahlia feather easily. The shade is lovely, but I would prefer something even darker.

Techno Pagan is much more blue-based than Pagan. It's also less liquid in consistency, I have to squeeze the tube with some force to get some product out. The thicker consistency also means that it's less likely to feather and goes on thicker, so it's easy to achieve a fully opaque look. In the picture I've applied Black Dahlia liner on the edges, which shows as much more red than Techno Pagan.

Black Metal Dahlia is a little bit thicker than the non-metallic tars, much like Techno Pagan. It's still nowhere near the thickness of Techno Pagan and goes on easier. The metallic sheen is truly gorgeous and a real eye-catcher. A nice way to use this one is to dab a little bit in the middle of the lips when wearing regular Black Dahlia, just to get a hint of shimmer to make your lips look fuller. 

Anita (no picture on lips yet, sorry!) is a rusty, brownish red. Very wearable as a shade, but for some reason Anita is very runny and even feathers in the swatch on skin. It's partly separated in the tube, but I've kneaded the tube and let it rest upside down and done every trick suggested, but Anita just won't behave. I like the shade, so I'll keep trying. In it's current runny state it feathers even on top of liner.

Sebastian is pure love. I'm not usually a big fan of nude lipsticks, but Sebastian is not a pure nude, but a greyish beige shade, and slightly darker than my lips. I also got the matching lip liner, because I had nothing of this shade in my stash. The liner is actually a little bit darker than the lip tar, as you can see in my picture, but I quite like the effect it gives when blended inwards with the tar. Sebastian needs less touching up than the darker shades, mainly because it's so close to my lip shade that when it wears off a little in the center, it's not very noticeable. Sebastian is the shade I've been wearing the most out of all the lip tars. It's a very unique shade and works surprisingly well with dark eyeshadow looks, as it does not make your lips disappear like many nude lippies.

Generally I like the lip tars a lot. The pigmentation is astonishing and the shade selection is great. The only problems I've had are on how to touch if my lips when I'm on the move. I tried carrying a little lip brush, but I didn't know how to store it after use when it was dirty. I've also tried just dabbing on a little product on the center of my lips and smacking, but especially Techno Pagan with the thicker consistency won't spread evenly. I guess a retractable lip brush or two is what I need, but I don't currently own any so I haven't been able to try any.

The second problem is washing lip brushes. Tars seem to stick very well to bristles and I find it impossible to get all of the product out of the brushes, there's always some left. I washed the brushes with soap, then with water-proof make-up remover, then with alcohol and still they have some product left on them. I'll be trying olive oil next and report on how it works. Having a tiny bit left on the bristles is not a big problem when applying the darker shades, but with Sebastian I've had to reserve one brush just for it to avoid getting traces of other shades in it.

Clearly the lip tars take some trial and error work on getting the application just right and on how to clean your brushes, but they wear very well and have good staying power. I must say I'm a fan!