Tag Archives: occ lip tar

OCC Rollergirl, Pool Boy, Mannequin Lip Tar Swatches

Pool Boy //Mannequin // Rollergirl

I received a few OCC items at The Makeup Show, and today I have swatches of three lip tars from the new Plastic Passion collection. You can see all of the Plastic Passion lip tars at here on Sephora.com. For beautiful swatches of all six shades, check out Portrait of Mai’s post here.

Lip Tars, as you are probably aware, are an intensely pigmented liquid lipstick. I find that they work best when I apply the thinnest layer possible. I don’t generally experience bleeding with lip tars, but if you do, a clear lip liner or lip primer will help. Continue reading →

OCC Power Plant Lip Tar Review, Swatches, and Mixing!

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At first glance, OCC’s brand new lip tar, Power Plant, does not look even remotely wearable. A shimmery pale green? What am I going to do with that? However, after playing with it, I am very happy to have it in my stash; not to wear alone, but to mix.

Although I’ve tried – and swatched – many of OCC’s creme-finish lip tars, Power Plant was my first experience with OCC’s new metallic lip tar formula. Like the creme finish lip tars, it has a peppermint scent (but no uncomfortable tingle on the lips), and like the creme finish lip tars, only a tiny amount should be used, or else the lip tar will feather and/or smear.

From a skin swatch, I had no idea what it would look like on the lips:

It turns out that alone, it looks – well – pretty bad. Not really wearable or flattering at all, even for most people who like nonstandard colors. It looks frosty and cancels out some of my natural lip color for a very unflattering look. I can imagine it being used quite effectively for an editorial look, however!

OCC Power Plant

But, then I tried mixing it. First, I grabbed the nearest lip tar, which happened to be Radiate – perhaps my favorite of the lip tars I own.

OCC Radiate

I mixed them, and was surprised to find that almost-neon coral red plus metallic green makes a not-shimmery, dimensional rosy neutral.

Radiate // Radiate + Power Plant // Power Plant

The mixture here has a little bit too much Power Plant, so you can see a bit of a green highlight, but you get the idea.

Radiate + Power Plant = Surprise!

I was astonished by this gorgeous result; I guess I don’t understand color theory very well!

Here are some other creations using Power Plant lip tar:

Sleek Pinkini // Pinkini + Power Plant // OCC Power Plant

I believe Sleek Pinkini Pout Paint is somewhat similar to OCC Anime Lip Tar.

Sleek Pin Up // Pin Up + Power Plant // OCC Power Plant

I believe Sleek Pin Up is very similar to OCC NSFW Lip Tar.

Power Plant lip tar, as well as the matching Power Plant nail polish (which I swatched here) are supposed to be exclusive to Sephora.com; however, I’ve heard that the lip tar has been spotted in-store at Sephora.

*I received Power Plant lip tar courtesy of OCC and The Makeup Show. I purchased the other products in this post. This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

OCC Black Dahlia Lip Tar Review & Swatches

As you may know, I’m a huge fan of the OCC lip tars – they’re one of my favorite long-wearing lip products. I’ve swatched five of the shades previously, and I have a sixth for you today! Black Dahlia is a new shade, and part of the -->Heroine Collection -->, which includes both lip tars and other products.

As I said in my last review, lip tars have a thin, fluid texture. They have a peppermint scent. They are basically a very, very pigmented liquid lipstick – the most pigmented lip product I have ever tried. When worn correctly, I have no bleeding or feathering, and they easily last for 6+ hours on me. However, if you apply too much, which is very easy to do, they are a complete mess – they’ll slip off your lips, on to your skin, where they will stain and look very messy. They must be applied with a lip brush. Some people find them drying, but I don’t – though I love matte lip products, and rarely find anything too drying.

Lip tars are now sold at Sephora – it looks like they have the whole shade range online, but I’ve only seen a selection in-store. At Sephora, lip tars are packaged in a clear vinyl pouch and include a small lipbrush and a card with instructions on how to use the lip tar.

Sephora’s OCC lip tar packaging

Instructions – note that I’ve never used clear lip tar –
it’s definitely not necessary!

OCC lip brush – front

OCC lip brush – side

I was quite skeptical that the lip brush would be any good, but I used it to apply the swatches below, and it worked quite well. It has an extremely short handle, but the brush head is a nice size for working with lip tar, and the brush hairs are nicely shaped. It feels like natural hair to me, but since all of OCC’s full size brushes are vegan, I’m sure it’s just an excellent synthetic.

When I swatched Black Dahlia on my arm, I realized it looked similar to MAC Rebel, so I’ve swatched them together so you can compare. AS you can see, they are very similar in color, but Black Dahlia is darker and seems to have more depth. The flash picture looks more color-accurate to me.

OCC Black Dahlia, MAC Rebel - comparison swatches - dupes

OCC Black Dahlia, MAC Rebel – flash

OCC Black Dahlia, MAC Rebel – natural light

Note that Black Dahlia has a different finish than the other lip tars I own – to borrow nail polish terms, the others have a creme finish, and Black Dahlia is a jelly. Or, you could say that the others are opaque, while Black Dahlia has a translucency to it. However, the texture and application seemed the same to me as the other lip tars I own.

I have two lip swatches. The first is a very light application – I used barely any lip tar, the smallest amount I could get to fully cover my lips. For the second, I added another thin coat after the first coat had set.

Black Dahlia – one layer

Black Dahlia – two layers

As you can see, this is not a forgiving shade – every last texture imperfection on my lips is clearly visible. Of course, it looks much better from further away, but some patchiness is still visible.

Also note that Black Dahlia stained my arm – I’m used to swatches staining, but this was a much more persistant stain than most. I usually remove stubborn swatches with straight jojoba oil, then wash my arm with hand soap, then towel dry. This method gets almost all stains off easily – but here’s the result after one round:

Black Dahlia / Rebel stains

After a second round of oil / soap / towel, the Rebel stain is completely gone and the Black Dahlia stain has diminished significantly, but is still quite visible.

Of course, one doesn’t usually get product on one’s arm in the normal course of wearing lipstick! Staining is both a negative and a positive in my opinion. The downside is that it means that if you accidentally go outside your lip line when applying the product, it might stain and thus be difficult to get a clean lip outline. The upside, of course, is that the product will stain your lips and last very well.

Overall, I love Black Dahlia lip tar. I love the color SO much, and I love the slightly translucent quality. However, it is tricky to work with – more so even than other lip tars – so I would only recommend it if you are willing to spend extra time working with it.

Availability: Sephora.com, -->OCC online -->, Beauty.com — $16

OCC Lip Tar Review & Swatches

OCC Queen, Harlot, Radiate, Grandma, Tarred

Since the Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (OCC) lip tars are now available at Sephora, and thus more accessible, I thought it would be a good time to swatch and review the five I have.

As you can see, I have three (Queen, Harlot, and Radiate) in the new-style packaging, and two (Grandma and Tarred) in the older style packaging. The product is the same. I prefer the new packaging – it has a very thin nozzle-tip, which is ideal for this product because so little is needed per application (more on that later). The older ones had a slant-tip, which was messier. I also like the new matte packaging aesthetically.

Lip Tars have a thin, fluid texture. They have a peppermint scent. They are basically a very, very pigmented liquid lipstick – the most pigmented lip product I have ever tried. When worn correctly, I have no bleeding or feathering, and they easily last for 6+ hours on me. However, if you apply too much, which is very easy to do, they are a complete mess – they’ll slip off your lips, on to your skin, where they will stain and look very messy. They must be applied with a lip brush. Some people find them drying, but I don’t – I love matte lip products, and rarely find anything too drying.

I tried to take a picture of how much product I use, but after photographing and using this, I realized it was too much – this is about 1.5x as much product as I need for one application; you’ll need about this much if you have very full lips and about half this much if you have smaller lips.

OCC lip tar – more than one application

That’s the ELF concealer brush; a very small brush – you can see it compared to other brushes in this post.

And, swatches! These are SO BRIGHT that my camera had trouble focusing – sorry about the blurring!

OCC Queen, Harlot, Radiate, Grandma, Tarred - swatches

OCC Queen, Harlot, Radiate, Grandma, Tarred – natural light

OCC Queen, Harlot, Radiate, Grandma, Tarred – with flash

I think Tarred is feathering because I applied too much in the swatch; I don’t have trouble with it feathering when I wear it on my lips.

And, lip swatches:

OCC Queen – natural light

OCC Queen – flash

Queen is a very vivid bright pink. The true color is somewhere in between the two photos above (brighter than the natural light photo, slightly less saturated than the flash photo).

OCC Harlot

OCC Radiate

Harlot and Radiate are extremely similar; the only reason I own both is that I got Harlot free as a beauty.com gift with purchase. The reason Radiate looks brighter in the swatch is that I’m wearing a slightly thicker layer; either one can look like either of the photos.

OCC Grandma

Grandma is a soft, true coral. It’s paler than I usually prefer for my lip products, so I don’t wear it very often, but it’s a great shade for mixing.

I don’t have a lip swatch of Tarred, because it’s just black. I have a swatch and review of Black Dahlia lip tar here.

In addition to being worn alone, Lip Tars are great for mixing. I usually mix them up in small (3 gram sized) jars with screw-top lids; I’ll mix enough for several applications. You can also use a palette and just mix up enough for one application – they’re so long lasting that often you won’t need to reapply.

Overall, I really love Lip Tars. I love matte, longwearing lip products, and these fit the bill perfectly. But, they’re not for everyone; they’re best for people who don’t mind spending some time figuring out how to use them initially, and then an extra minute or two to apply.

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Tag Archives: occ lip tar

OCC Rollergirl, Pool Boy, Mannequin Lip Tar Swatches

OCC Power Plant Lip Tar Review, Swatches, and Mixing!

OCC Black Dahlia Lip Tar Review & Swatches

OCC Lip Tar Review & Swatches