MAKEUP | The Burberry Liquid Lip Velvets with Lip Swatches

I've been noticing that a number of lip products have been gracing the blog in the last couple of weeks and I think it's because there have been, what feels like, an unusually large number of releases for the lips. I am still waiting for the glossy lip to make its appearance again, but for now the matte lip trend continues with variations on texture and comfort. I thought I was a die hard gloss fan until I realized how much longer a matte lip lasts!

Burberry. This is a brand that never half-asses anything and a number of my daily makeup staples belong to this brand. The Eye Colour Contour Pens (review) are getting down to the nubbins now because they last and look great anytime. Any day. I can never go wrong with them and so when Burberry released the Liquid Lip Velvets ($38.00 CDN) with their bold, matte and whipped texture, I was like "Let's DO this! Momma needs some new lip shades!" 

Coming in 14 shades from Light Nude to a beautiful-looking Black Cherry, these lip velvets promise bold colour with a comforting and light whipped texture. I received the shades: Regiment Red*, Fawn Rose* and my favourite Bright Plum*. I want to say that these were a breeze to use, but underneath the smiles below hid a few obstacles involving product consistency and application though at first glance the solid build of the matte packaging is truly luxurious and bears the mark of a first class product.

As with most lip products of this nature, we have the standard doe-foot applicator though I found because of the whipped nature of this product, I preferred using a more defined lip brush to smooth out the edges of my lips.

Swatches are pigmented as promised, but I found that I had to put my applicator back into the tube 2-3x to get the colour completely even on both the arms and lips. Regiment Red was actually the most challenging as it seemed a little drier than the other two shades.

Fawn Rose applied the best, perhaps because it was a nude and it was harder to see any unevenness in application. The unfortunate thing with this particular colour was that 1) it applied almost Barbie Pink on my actual lips and 2) it was unforgiving in accentuating every crevice and dry patch I had!

Bright Plum was my favourite shade and like most dark colours needed some patience to apply, but had a more workable and creamy texture than Regiment Red.

Interestingly enough, I realized that if I blotted once with a tissue all three shades looked soft and pillowy and FELT truly velvety on the lips as the formula took some time to dry down. There were times where I was a little impatient and just blotted resulting in a wearable texture! Yay for trial and error!

Bright Plum

Fawn Rose

Regiment Red

Final verdict: Despite the challenges I had, I wouldn't give the lip velvets a complete pass. Were they a little harder to work with than I had anticipated, sure, but when I look at these photos I am glad I took notes because my extra efforts are certainly not evident! The three shades I received are pigmented and my guess is that in general, the lighter matte shades are just less forgiving on dry patches which is too bad. So, in short, if you're willing to work a little harder for perfect application then yes these Burberry Liquid Lip Velvets live up to their claims, but if you can't be bothered then I would move on and try one of their Full Kisses lipsticks instead.

The Burberry Lip Velvets are available at all Burberry counters.