It’s the end of my first semester at uni and naturally I celebrated by making a few too many online lipstick purchases. The first of the lot arrived today, and it was one I was super excited for - despite the hype in the indie community, I had never tried Limnit Lipsticks. This mostly stemmed from my longstanding refusal to apply lipsticks with lip brushes - until recently, Limnit were working on their lipstick tubes and only sold in jars.

When the announcement that they were stocking tubes again came, I had to get in quick and make an order. I did use a discount code which is still valid - EXTRATERRESTRIAL, the name of their new colour, will currently get you $2.75USD off your order of $12.95USD and up - but with each tube coming to $17.43AUD (currently - at the time of ordering, the exchange rate got me it for $16.67 - they are consistently $12.95USD for reference), I couldn’t afford to splurge across the board. Especially since international shipping jacked my order up another $12AUD. Painstakingly, I selected A League of My Own - a gorgeous teal - over the other colours that were calling to me. And today, my order arrived.

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It arrived in your standard padded envelope, nothing special there. I really do enjoy the branding - I love the chevron print paper bag the lipstick was wrapped in, it was well bubble-wrapped, and the card with every possibly trick and tip as well as a short handwritten thank you is a nice touch. It shipped pretty quickly - it arrived here ten days after I placed the order, which is pretty excellent considering how many purchases I made earlier that still haven’t arrived. I love the Limnit website - the product listings are detailed and there are great suggestions, and the ingredients are clearly stated. The colour range offered is phenomenal, and choosing one was genuinely very difficult - my heart was saying “Sara, get another blue lipstick!” but my brain won out. They’re also vegan and cruelty free, so you don’t have to let your conscience go wild.



I was a little bummed out at the lack of samples, but I think that’s just because I’ve been spoiled by indie companies in the past (Fyrinnae in particular rock my world with their samples), and it’s not something I expect with an order but rather a nice bonus if it does happen. It would have been nice to be able to try out another colour, just because the lipsticks are…well, they aren’t cheap. Let’s get into that.

So $12.95USD is not outrageous for a tube of lipstick, from what I understand, and $17AUD is not outrageous here. However, for a NYX lipstick with similar packaging I am paying about $12.95AUD. I understand it’s not feasible for indie brands to produce on that scale or for that price, but for $17 I’m usually getting a pretty middle-ground lipstick, like a Chi Chi ($18.95) or a Revlon (around $20). The jars appear quite a lot more reasonable, at about $6AUD for a jar with an amount I’d never use up. Unfortunately, due to my anti-lip brush stance, I can’t justify it.

The packaging sucks. I like the label on the bottom with the shade name and I appreciate the clear window showing me the colour (similar to the NYX lipsticks) but holy moly, it’s unsturdy. It’s super light and flimsy feeling, and the lipstick doesn’t fully descend into the tube which makes putting the lid on riskier than I’d like. It also doesn’t stay pushed up when you try to apply it, which was an issue I had with the NYX macaron lippies - I really had to hold it in place lest it start falling down while I was applying. There’s also very little feeling of security when you close it - I worry about the lid falling off. So for $17, that was a little disappointing.

THAT SAID!

(excuse my lack of makeup, I’m having a poor health day)



The positives:



The colour of this lipstick is stunning. It’s a vivid teal towards the greener side of the spectrum. It reminds me of Illamasqua’s Apocalips, but with none of the formula issues that colour has, and somewhat lighter - it’s also pretty close to NYX’s Wicked lippie in Scandalous, but that one is slightly more blue and also way more emollient and slippy.

Aside from the packaging issue, it applied beautiful. It went on even in one swipe, super pigmented and the shape of the bullet allows for a clean application. It has no noticeable scent or flavour, which is fine by me. It isn’t advertised as matte, but is rather a demi-matte (if you want to mattify it, there are tricks on the provided product card). It’s really comfortable - I can feel it on my lips, but there’s no dryness, no cracking or clumping, no bleeding. It transfers like wildfire so if you’re not used to seeing bright teal marks all over your food then you might be put off, but clearly I’m used to it. I can’t speak for longevity yet (I’ll update this later), but I’ve been wearing it for an hour now and it’s still comfortable and it feels like it will stay in place well. For a non traditional colour, that’s always appreciated.

Want a bad close up of my lips and my nostrils/pimples?

It’s not highlighting any dryness or balling up and it looks smooth and consistent on the lips. I don’t think it particularly needs a liner or a primer, but we’ll see how it wears.

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Overall, despite my issues with the packaging (and the pricing!), I do really love this lipstick. The name is great, the branding is great and I know I’ll get a ton of wear out of this, even if I’m scared to let it loose in my handbag with packaging like that. I probably will purchase again - I’m eyeing up Bewitching Hour (dark blue, because I always need more dark blues), The Other Side ( medium grass green), Goodness Graycious (grey taupe), Flower Maze (cornflower blue), Freestyle (bright medium blue) and Abracadabra (the most boring of my picks, a bright eggplant purple). They have been lauded as muted brights, and I can see why. That said, I’ll be really hesitant to buy again because it does cost so much to get these to Australia, and for that price, I’d want sturdier packaging. I’m in two minds. I really do love the product, but I can’t justify dropping that amount of money without trying the colours or a packaging improvement. Maybe next time I’m treating myself?



Oh, the internal divide.

