Urban Decay Backtalk Vice Lipstick Comparisons (plus a quick review of NYX Slip Tease Full Color Lip Oil in Lowkey)

Affiliate Links

Urban Decay's Vice Lipstick in Backtalk, in their Comfort Matte finish, is one of the most popular shades in that huge line. They even made a whole eye and face palette based on it. It's in that dusty pink/mauve/MLBB (my-lips-but-better) family, which is the largest category of lip products in my hoard. Despite its popularity and my personal preference for this type of shade, there's something about Backtalk that's just a little off when I wear it. It's not that it looks bad, exactly, but it also doesn't make my face look better than it did without any lipstick.

I decided to swatch all my lipsticks that are even remotely similar to see if I can pick out any patterns and discern why Backtalk doesn't work for me. And since I was doing that, I figured I might as well post them here for you, in case you want to find/avoid dupes--or in case you can help me answer my question.

Here are the swatches, in no particular order. The first swatch in every photo is always Urban Decay Backtalk.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk

2. Bite Beauty Pepper (Luminous Creme formula)

3. Bite Beauty Matte Crème Lip Crayon in Glacé

4. BareMinerals GEN NUDE Liquid Lipstick in Swag

5. Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Lovesick

6. Make Up For Ever Artist Rouge Lipstick in Rosewood

7. Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Fig

So of the lipsticks in this selection, besides Backtalk, the only two I don't really like on myself are the KVD Lovesick and Bite Fig. Lovesick is a little cooler, with more pink/purple, than Backtalk, and Fig is much warmer and peachier. (Fortunately Lovesick is also a sample, because since it does that dried-up butthole thing to my lips, I wouldn't want to be stuck with a whole tube. Also, I don't buy Kat Von D products.) I'm not sure I'm seeing a pattern here yet.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk (It's interesting how Backtalk will look different depending on what other swatches you put it next to. The lighting is the same!)

2. Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Rhubarb

3. Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice (reviewed here)

4. NYX Slip Tease Full Color Lip Oil in Lowkey (which is very, very similar to Touch of Spice--more on this lipstick below!)

5. Colourpop Lux Lipstick in Angel City

6. Nars Satin Lip Pencil in Rikugien

7. Wet N Wild Megalast Lipstick in Rose-bud

Everything here is much warmer than Backtalk, and it all works well for me, so maybe that's something. Rhubarb is slightly blah on me, but I'm guessing it would look great on people who like Revlon Sultry, which is similar to Maybelline Touch of Spice but slightly less flattering on me (review/comparison here).

Side note: has anyone ever come across a dupe for Wet N Wild Rose-bud? I love the color, but the Megalast formula always dries out my lips.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk 

2. L'Oréal Colour Riche La Lacque Lip Pen in Choco-lacque (reviewed here)

3. Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick in Rapture (discontinued, but available in Vice format)

4. Urban Decay Sheer Revolution Lipstick in Sheer Rapture (discontinued)

5. Revlon Balm Stain in Honey (reviewed here)

6. Tom Ford Lip Color Matte in Pussycat

Pussycat looks closest to Backtalk here, and it's also the one I like least on my face, though slightly better than Backtalk. These two lipsticks are both pretty muted (i.e. they have grey added), so that could be a clue. Rapture looks muted when you consider it alone, but next to Backtalk, it's a bit more saturated.

1. Urban Decay Backtalk 

2. Tarte Tarteist Creamy Matte Lip Paint in Birthday Suit (i.e. last year's Sephora birthday gift)

3. LA Girl Matte Lipstick in Snuggle (reviewed here)

4. Burt's Bees Lip Crayon in Sedona Sands

5. Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Thistle

None of the above is particularly similar to Backtalk, so the fact that most of them work for me isn't especially informative. The exception is Birthday Suit, which is an unflattering beige--I think it's the yellow undertones that set it apart from the superficially similar Snuggle. Come to think of it, though, Thistle is both very muted and pretty cool, and I like it a lot on me. Maybe that's because it's more of a statement corpse-lip, rather than just looking accidentally blah. (I'm wearing it in this Instagram pic, though the lighting isn't great.)

You probably want to see what Backtalk actually looks like on me at this point. (Apologies for the grainy photo.)

Like I said, it's not awful, but a great lipstick will light up your face, and a good lipstick will at least be better than nothing.

I'm not sure what I've learned through this process. I need my MLBB lipsticks to be muted, but not too muted, and more brown than grey, maybe. Or more brown than pink? Thoughts? I have definitely learned that I have way too many similar lipsticks (ok, I already knew that), and that weirdly enough I have never reviewed most of these. Any you'd like to know more about?

I'll tell you more right now about one of them. I recently used Ulta points to pick up a lipstick from one of NYX's 700 or so liquid lipstick lines, a newer one called Slip Tease Full Color Lip Oil. It's full color, sure, but having oil in the name is a bit of a red herring. It's not like YSL Tint-In-Oil or most other products called lip oils. It's less drying than most matte liquid lipsticks, sure, but there's nothing that looks or feels oily about it. (There are a few oils halfway down the ingredients list, but a lot of other things come before them.)

Here is Lowkey on my face:

More flattering, wouldn't you agree, than Backtalk? The rest of my makeup is the same, as is the lighting. Here's a lip swatch:

When you see it all alone, it looks like a rosy pink, but in the swatches above (second set), you can see that it definitely has some brown in it when compared to other lipsticks in the same family. The formula is really lovely. It's slightly moussey and thick enough that you can easily and neatly apply it using just the doe foot (not as thick as the Tarte liquid lipstick, though). It's opaque in one coat, but not so pigmented that it risks getting really messy. The finish is demi-matte. It dries down a bit but not completely, so it retains slip and moisture and feels pretty much like a bullet lipstick--yet it doesn't transfer easily. Wear time is about the same as a decent bullet, so you'll probably have to reapply after a meal. Best of all, it doesn't dry my lips out.

This is one of the nicest lipsticks I've tried recently, and probably the nicest liquid lipstick I've ever used. I'd recommend giving it a try if you see a color you like. That's my one complaint: while I love Lowkey (way to be hip to the new slang, kids), none of the other colors really interests me. There's variety, but something about the selection bores me. Bang Bang and Entice might be ok? I think a terracotta orange would be really great in this formula.

I kind of ordered Lowkey blind (you can never trust Ulta's photos for color accuracy), but it ended up working great. It would be nice if I could work out some kind of rules to predict which lipsticks will work best on me. Do you know what works for you when you see it, or do you have to try everything on like I do?

What's in a dupe? Revlon Matte Balm in Sultry vs. Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice

Disclosure: Affiliate links.

During last fall and early this winter, I kept reading recommendations for Revlon Matte Balm in Sultry from reliable sources and seeing Instagram posts of people wearing it and looking stunning. I became convinced that I needed it, despite my previously less-than-stellar experiences with two of the lipsticks in that line: Elusive (reviewed here) and Striking (reviewed here). Surely if so many sensible people liked Sultry, there must be something to it. And indeed, the performance of Sultry is vastly better than the other two matte balms, both in terms of application (not streaky) and wear (not patchy).

But when I got it home and put it on, something seemed eerily familiar. Oh shit, I bought a dupe! Why did I want this when I already had the very similar Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice? You can see from the swatches below that they are quite close.

They're not identical, but they fit into the same basic category. Touch of Spice (left) is a more brown/neutral with a little grey, while Sultry has some more plummy-red in it.

On my face, the difference is subtle, but one lipstick is noticeably more flattering on me than the other. The second time I wore Sultry, I had also been playing around with some subtle contouring. When I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror, it looked kind of dirty, and I thought I had messed up the contouring. But then I got to thinking about how similar my new lipstick was to Touch of Spice and decided to remove Sultry and replace it with the Maybelline lipstick to compare. All of the sudden, my contouring looked fine. I looked healthier. As it turns out, the subtle difference in the two lipsticks makes a real difference when I wear them.

Review of L'Oreal Colour Riche La Lacque Lip Pen in Choco-Lacque (and how to get free stuff if you are willing to experiment on your face)

Disclosure: Affiliate links.
Let's start with the best part: free stuff. I got the lipstick I'm reviewing here as compensation for doing some L'Oreal Consumer Testing. You sign up at that link, fill out some questionnaires, and they send you unlabeled products to test. Then, a few weeks later, they send you some other shit as compensation for doing the testing and reporting on your results.

It took over a year before I got into any trials. You will probably get disqualified from a lot of surveys before you get into one. That's normal. They also rarely notify you when there are new questionnaires, so you have to remember to check the site often to find them.

The things you test (and the compensation) could be from any brand under the L'Oreal umbrella, and could be makeup, skin care, or hair care. I've tested several mascaras and a couple of hair mousses (I think that's it). I have also heard about people testing eyebrow products, lipstick, foundation, and contouring kits, among other things.

The above photo shows some of the stuff I've got as compensation. Usually you get 1-3 products in return for each test you do, though the size of the compensation depends on the length of the trial, etc. In addition to the brands below (L'Oreal, Maybelline, and Lancôme), I've received a Garnier face wash and some other L'Oreal products, as well as a second Lancôme eyeshadow quint. I know other people have got Kiehl's as well. No Urban Decay, as far as I am aware! Too bad.

It can be a fun way to try new things, if you like surprises, and you're willing to risk using a product for a few days - or even a couple of weeks - that you don't love. (Of course, if you have a bad reaction to it, you stop using it immediately and notify them.) You also have to follow the rules: no discussing what you're testing online (or at all?), sometimes you have to return the test product when the testing period is up (though not usually), and you can't sell or trade your compensation products. Oh, and obviously you have to be a willing cog in the whole evil cosmetics marketing machine.

The lipstick I'm reviewing today is one that I got as compensation for doing L'Oreal testing. It's one of my favorite things I've been sent.  The whole thing is a bit of a crapshoot - the Maybelline lipstick in the photo above looks like this. I'm guessing the products they send are overstock in most cases. But I'm glad they had extras of this one.

I posted this photo of Choco-Lacque on Instagram last month, because I wore it to speak at a symposium, and it was great for that purpose. It's your typical work-friendly rosy-mauve or pinky-neutral or MLBB or whatever. It's also really comfortable to wear (not drying) and it lasts a long time. That's important for teaching or anything else where you're going to be talking for a long time. It won't survive greasy food, but that's a long shot anyway. It's sort of thick and sticky, but in a good, comfortable way, and I expect it's that texture that makes it last. I also like the packaging. I find lipsticks in crayon form or anything with a smaller tip and a longer case to be easier to apply neatly.

L'Oreal has two variations in this line: Colour Riche La Lacque and Le Matte. The latter is oviously supposed to be matte, but it was never quite clear to me what La Lacque was supposed to be. And now that I have one . . . still not totally clear. The Revlon Lacquer Balms are a little sheer and shiny, which sounds about right for "lacquer" to me. This La Lacque lipstick is neither. It's not matte, but it's also not particularly shiny. Satin at best.

See? Come to think if it, I suspect there are some brands that would label this matte (like Bite or Urban Decay). (The swatch color below is more accurate. For some reason it wanted to photograph really pink in the lip close-up. You can also see it on my face here, and the color is more accurate in that photo as well.)

Here's Choco-Lacque compared to some other products in the same general color family  - demonstrating that I have too many, but they're just so damned easy to wear (except when they're too easy):

Swatches of L'Oreal Colour Riche La Lacque Lip Pen in Choco-Lacque, Revlon Balm Stain in Honey, Lord & Berry Crayon Lipstick in Intimacy, Burt's Bees Lip Crayon in Sedona Sands, Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice, and Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Lust for Blush

Revlon Balm Stain in Honey is very close to the same color, but less opaque. Lord & Berry Crayon Lipstick in Intimacy is darker with more brown in it, with a similar finish, but not as good wear time. Burt's Bees Lip Crayon in Sedona Sands is sheerer and more beige/nude. Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Touch of Spice has more reddish-brown in it, is much darker (very similar to L&B Intimacy), and is, of course, more matte. Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Lust for Blush is cooler and more matte.

If you like Revlon Honey as much as I do, Choco-Lacque is like a more opaque version of it, and equally comfortable to wear, in my opinion. I don't hate having them both on hand. These are exactly the kind of lipsticks I like to wear when I want to feel like a competent, serious adult, without boring myself.

Here's the potential dealbreaker: The floral fragrance in Choco-Lacque is really fucking strong, and it lingers for a long time. I'm not the best at identifying scents, but to me it's a combination of rose and violet. This is (apparently?) my only L'Oreal lipstick, but I believe it's the usual L'Oreal scent. I happen to be a big fan of rose-scented lip products, so I completely love it. And it doesn't have a perfumey taste, from what I've noticed, so that's good. If you hate scented lipsticks, however, stay far away from this one.

Anyway, this was a pleasant surprise for me, and free! (Well, technically I paid for it with my time and labor testing whatever it was I tested.) I don't know how easy the La Lacque lipsticks are to find in the drugstore at the moment, because I haven't really been looking, but I believe they are now permanent. ULTA has them online, though (they mislabel this one "Coco-laque"). Have you tried any of the La Lacque or La Matte lipsticks? Are the others as good as this one? Can you handle the (beautiful) stench?