Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipstick “Bittersweet” | Review

Hello friends!

I just finished trying out Ashton, and so I was excited to give Bittersweet a go!  If you read my previous post, you know that I had an awesome experience with Ashton and will definitely be keeping it around and wearing it.  Today, I have an in depth review of my thoughts regarding this specific color.

Color: Bittersweet is described as a “brown plum”, which I think is incredibly accurate!  It’s a dark brown with a purple undertone and I truly adore the way it looks!  It’s definitely a vampy shade that might be out a lot of people’s comfort zones, but it’s stunning.  I think that because I have light skin with a neutral undertone, the dark color with purple tones really flatters me.

Packaging: In the same vein of Ashton, the packaging is very sleek and beautiful!  The clear tube fits nicely with the chrome cap and black “A” emblem.  Obviously the one I have is a sample size that I purchased in a kit last year, but the packaging is exactly the same as the full size, just smaller.

Applicator: The applicator on the sample size liquid lipsticks is the exact same as the full-size; long and flat with a rounded tip.  The length makes it easy to fully cover my lips with just the product already on the wand without having to fight with getting more product.

Application: In terms of application, it was hard to get a clean line because of the rounded edge.  I ended up overlining my lips a lot on accident just to try and straighten up my lip lines.  If you were to use a lip liner, it would definitely help with that issue but I a) don’t own one that color and b) hate the maintenance of needing a lip liner in the first place.  It did go on fully opaque, and I didn’t find any issues with patchiness or needing to try to clean up bald spots.

Comfort: In terms of comfort, the ABH liquid lipstick formula seems to be consistent between the two I’ve tried.  When I prep my lips first (chapstick the night before, chapstick and a lip scrub the morning of), it performs much better in terms of not sinking into lip lines and looking or feeling dry.  Even when I didn’t prep first, I had no issues with comfort at all until I ate lunch and it had broken up.  After about 8 hours of wear, I finally decided to take it off.

Fading: The fading on this color was a lot worse than in Ashton; while this is likely because of the bold color and being able to see it more, I was really unhappy with how it looked. There was no transfer while drinking, but when I had lunch it wore off very quickly on the center of my lips and the corners were completely bare; it looked chunky and kind of gross and embarrassing because I was out in public.

There is good potential that because I ate some Chik-fil-a, which is pretty greasy, it broke down this product more than the lunch I ate while wearing Ashton, but the point still stands that this color didn’t hold up well at all.  Because of the wear, I would highly recommend a lip liner if you aren’t able to make regular check ups and touch ups on it.

Transfer: This color seemed to break down from my oils more than Ashton did, and so it transferred more when I pushed my lips to the back of my hands.  It definitely wore poorly during lunch and transferred onto my food, but there wasn’t any transfer in the first three hours of wear.  Alternatively, if you don’t eat a greasy meal and don’t have problems with oils around your mouth, this will last better on you.

Overall: I’m really disappointed with the fading and uneven wearing of this color, so it’s hard to say if I feel like it’s worth the $20 price tag.  If you’re able to find it on sale and can find a matching lip liner, I’d say go for it!  It’s such a beautiful color, and I really do think that using a matching liner would fix the issues, so I might keep this around and try that; I’ll keep you updated!

If you’re interested in buying this color, you can find it at Sephora, Ulta, and Anastasia Beverly Hills’ direct website.

Do you feel comfortable wearing dark, vampy colors like this?