Urban Decay managed to hook me with that 24-shade sample pod thingy that everyone and their mother got last year. There's no way I would have given Rock Steady a second glance if I hadn't tried it on--and there's no way I would have bothered to try on what looked like a basic dark red--without that sample. But it turned out to be one of the most flattering lipsticks I've ever put on my face. You know those rare colors that seem to just light up your complexion? And harmonize seamlessly and look somehow natural even though they really aren't at all? Rock Steady is that, for me. But I was sure that in all my reds and burgundies and berries, I had to have something that was a dupe, or close enough. So I decided to do some comparison swatches.
And then I thought, what the hell, I should just go ahead and compare the rest of these samples to all the lipsticks I have. That could be fun. (As you may suspect, this has now become one of my longest posts ever, so buckle up. Or settle in. Or something.)
To do that, I had to pull out all of my lipsticks (both bullets and liquids) and pile them on my bed. Then I had to divide them into color categories: reds, rose/mauve/MLBBs ("my lips but better"), nudes, pinks, berries and fuchsias, corals and oranges, vampy shades and purples, and browns. Once they were all laid out like that I couldn't help but count them. 57! That's too many. Ugh. Mind you, that number includes minis as well as a bunch that I don't wear but have been stuck in a drawer for swatching. It doesn't, however, include anything in a pan, like my So Choix samples.
(Um, and I've bought a few new lipsticks since I finished swatching these. But no more money will be spent on lipstick in the foreseeable future.)
I didn't count individual categories, but by far the largest were the MLBBs and the reds. The MLBBs make sense, because I wear them more than anything else. The reds on the other hand . . . how did that happen? I guess it's in part because I think I should wear red more, and in part because when you get a freebie lipstick, it's almost always red. (And here I am writing a post a post about coveting another red lipstick.) The smallest categories were nudes, browns, oranges, and pinks. Like pinky-pinks, not berry or fuchsia or magenta.
On to the swatches! Not everything in my hoard has been swatched here, because I chose things based on how similar they were to the Urban Decay samples. I'm not going to review these lipsticks, Urban Decay or otherwise, unless I feel particularly compelled. I didn't swatch Urban Decay samples if I had nothing comparable, like Big Bang, which is basically a clear base with lots of pink glitter in it. Also, the swatches here are meant simply to compare colors and, to some extent, finishes. You shouldn't draw any conclusions about opacity or anything like that based on my photos alone, because I swatched the UD samples with a q-tip in most cases, but the others were applied directly from the bullets.
My main purpose here was to see if I had any dupes in my hoard, but as you'll see, there weren't too many. Nevertheless, I hope this will still serve as a useful point of reference for some of you, because you may be able to see how these things compare to lipsticks you already own. It was a valuable exercise for me.
Since Rock Steady was where I began . . . it's where I'll begin. As you can see, I actually didn't have anything quite like it. It's a dark red wine with a bit of berry in it. On my lips, it looks like strawberry jam. Rock Steady (cream finish) and Gash (cream finish) are quite similar, in fact, with Rock Steady being just a touch brighter. If you are not a makeup person, then all of these variations of red probably look pretty close--but (a) I chose the ones I had that were most similar to compare, and (b) you are probably a makeup person if you're reading this. You know, then, that red lipstick is a bitch and so slight variations can mean the difference between perfectly flattering and totally off. For instance, the "universally flattering" Nars Cruella (5) looks awful on me.
1. Urban Decay Vice Lipstick in Rock Steady; 2. Urban Decay Vice Lipstick in Gash; 3. Bite Beauty Scarlet (reviewed here); 4. Maybelline Creamy Matte in Divine Wine (reviewed here); 5. Nars Cruella; 6. Urban Decay Bad Blood; and 7. NYX Matte Perfect Red.
