I Bit the Apple! [RedAppleLipstick Review]


Like so many buyers of RedAppleLipstick products before me, I'd never heard of the brand until a friendly youtuber, specifically makeupTIA, mentioned them in a monthly favourites video. The fact that their products are cruelty-free, completely vegan and also gluten-free captivated the makeup junkie in me... And I went on a binge buy. To be honest, it wasn't completely unprovoked at the time –– I've been cruelty-free with my makeup for roughly 6 months now and vegan with as many cosmetics when possible, so finding makeup products to build that part of my collection, that not only fit the cruelty-free criteria but are also wearable and easy to use, has been difficult. Worth it, but difficult. When I eventually stumbled across the good stuff, I grabbed it and ran. I also like supporting little indie brands that distribute quality cosmetics, so I bit the bullet (or should I say apple?) and I placed an order.

RedAppleLipstick, as you may have guessed, are notorious for their lipstick however since I had enough lip products to feed a small army of internet beauty gurus at the time (my current situation isn't a whole lot better tbh), I desisted and decided to try out their Z-Palette system instead. You can fill one of their custom made Z-Palettes with up to 9 eyeshadows and the actual Z-Palette is free as well as the 4th shadow being free, the 6th shadow being half-price and the 9th shadow being also free. After carefully reading the FAQ I deduced that I'd have to pay customs charges on my order when it arrived (living in the UK when all the indie vegan makeup seems to be rooted in the US can be expensive) so I said C'est La Vie and got all the shades that I wanted in one order.

Full disclosure (not that this review is sponsored in any way, I bought everything): there were a couple of hiccups in the ordering process. Let me pull up receipts (you can find the e-ticket here). I placed my order on May 5th using PayPal at the checkout and expected everything to be all fine and dandy. I shop online often so when I didn't receive an email confirmation of my order being dispatched in the days following the placement of my order, I decided to revisit the website and check what was up. Imagine my shock when it said my order had been cancelled. Huh? I didn't cancel my order?! I found this blip on May 10th. I wrote to them immediately:


Not my finest hour of English but you get the point. All I wanted was my eyeshadow––!! They wrote back to me on the same day, if my memory serves me correctly it was merely an hour later. That is crazy impressive to me compared to some of my other experiences with complaints and customer service. Andrea answered my ticket and explained that their heavy duty fraud detection wrongly 'detected' me as a fraudulent buyer and automatically cancelled my order without the company being able to manually check which orders had been cancelled. It was a hot mess, but I've always been aware that with smaller companies there is a larger margin for error. I was offered a free lip balm and expedited shipping so I said yes and I kept an even keener eye on tracking the second time around. Needless to say, my order eventually arrived and it arrived in mint condition hallelujah. Like I previously mentioned there were customs charges, but that was no fault of their own and laid out in the FAQ for all to see. Here's Andrea's message FYI:


Review:

Now, on to the actual review. The colours I purchased were: Chocolate Martini, Espresso, Vamp, Bronze Bombshell, Lucky Penny, Golden Ticket, Olive this Color, Dirty Girl and Sage Rage. As you can see in the pictures below it is quite a warm palette but it is by no means another neutral "naked" set. It looks a lot more cooler toned in real life but it is perhaps slightly warmer when it's actually on my eyes. Regardless the photos have #NoFilter so y'all can see them properly. RedAppleLipstick also has a pre-made palette section of the website if the notion of creating a palette is slightly overwhelming. I will say it now, the shadows are not all created equal. Some shades I love, others (one in particular) not so much. 

 

Chocolate Martini was the first shadow I swatched because obsessive me had to organise all the shadows 'correctly' in the Z-Palette before I played with them. The shade is described as a "rich, dark chocolate brown with golden bronze shimmer" on the website and I think that is pretty accurate, but the shimmer can look purple-violet in certain lighting. It's a beautiful shift that makes the shadow dynamic and awesome to look at in the pan –– it looks like a deep burgundy sometimes at first glance. The shift also makes the shadow easy to pair with purples and burgundies as well as other browns, golds and greens. It's very dark but the bronze glitter makes the whole shade warmer. It's a very fun colour! I had an initial moment of panic because Chocolate Martini is so dry to swatch. The glitter feels gritty on the fingertip, the pay-off isn't great and it takes a couple of swipes to get it where you want it to be. With an eyeshadow brush on the eyelid it's a different story thank God: I later found that Chocolate Martini is a no-nonsense shadow without being overly intimidating, it's good for building up and it can look stunning with time and blending. Like I said, it is terrible to swatch and I wouldn't use this with my fingers ever, but it stays in place all day. Once it's there, it's there. Like an introverted funny friend at a party, all Chocolate Martini needs is a little warming up, you know?

Espresso is described as a "very dark, matte coffee bean brown eyeshadow" on the website, it is deliciously cool toned and has an undertone that makes it look like an extremely deep green, like a darker khaki-camouflage type of colour in the pan. This is the kind of shadow that will go with absolutely anything because it is cool toned enough to mimic a shadow on the face but warm enough to not look too ashy. I adore this colour –– even though it might seem mundane, it is incredibly versatile. In my crease it pulls more black-brown, it looks a lot darker on the skin than in the pan in my opinion. For paler people, I recommend using a really light hand because it can turn very dramatic very quickly! This is also an extremely dry shadow to swatch, the first two shadows and the last shadow that I swatched were the driest, but it is really nice when it is in the crease and it blends out nicely. It doesn't feel too drying or weighty when it's on the skin. Again, it has a wonderful staying power. Espresso is the guy that looks too intimidating to approach but in reality he has all this random knowledge on trivia, plays 5000 instruments and knows how to salsa. Does that even make sense? 

Vamp is one of my favourites! She broke the dry swatching curse, and although she wasn't exactly the buttery densely-packed eyeshadow of my dreams, she wasn't bone dry like Chocolate Martini. On the website, she is described as a "deep red color that reminds of aged red wine" but I think it's a warmer and more sultry burgundy in real life, with a satin finish that shows barely detectable burgundy glitter in pan but translates as a classy shimmer on the eye. I have 0 qualms with this eyeshadow. It's easy to blend, it's pigmented, it does what it says on the tin and is super easy to work with. I used this with my finger all over the lid and blended into the crease and I was good to go. I used this as a crease shade to smoke out my look today and I was good to go. Lower lashline pop of something extra? Marvellous. It's a pretty universal shadow that I see working on a huge variety of skin and eye colours in a huge variety of situations. Vamp is the pretty girl friend that you can take absolutely anywhere, who can pull off absolutely anything.  

Bronze Bombshell is a quintessential classic golden bronze. This is possibly the easiest one to dupe, in my case especially due to my personal love of bronzes, because it is a tried and tested colour. It is stunning nonetheless and I reckon it pulls my custom palette together. It is described as a "warm, deeply pigmented medium bronze eyeshadow with a golden sheen" and I'd like to add that it has a slight rose gold shift under certain lighting, like a rose-bronze (more bronze than rose but the slight pink is there). "Deeply pigmented" is absolutely correct because this shines the brightest on my arm and on my eyelid. This colour swatches the creamiest on my hand and it's pretty easy to pack on to the eye. To be perfectly honest I had to go in and pat this on a few times until I was satisfied, but once it was on it stayed on for the entire day. It does not budge. Bronze Bombshell is the gorgeous friend you have who is always a little bit extra, so much so that everyone around them has gotten used to their antics and doesn't mention it anymore. They're always overdressed and overdone, attention-seeking in a quiet but demanding way, and you love them for it. 

Lucky Penny is described as a "medium yellow copper with a stunning metallic finish... in the same family of colors as Bronze Bombshell ... but it’s lighter and more yellow than Bronze Bombshell" on the website but... Not on my swatch! Lucky Penny translates as pulling more towards the browny-green side of the golden spectrum on my skin and it is a tad darker than Bronze Bombshell on the eye in natural lighting (nowhere near as bright as BB). It looks a little lighter than Bronze Bombshell in the pan in some lighting, so I guess I know why RedAppleLipstick said the contrary. I found myself putting this metallic shadow just below my crease a lot and not really on my lid –– I'd much rather use its more glamorous sister Bronze Bombshell. It wasn't bright enough for me to use it as a highlight shade either... It is a nice colour! Don't get me wrong! But it doesn't really stand out for me personally in the palette. Lucky Penny is ok blended with other browns and for me that's it, I wouldn't put it in the crease because it's too metallic and I wouldn't reach for it to place on the lid because other lid shades overpower it. The texture of it is lovely, it blends nicely, swatches great but it's not an outstanding colour for me even though I don't have any shades quite like it (now I know why!). Lucky Penny is the 6th child in a family of 15 who has average grades, everyone forgets her name and she is simply a familiar face in her large group of acquaintances that she calls friends.

Golden Ticket is a paler, more gold version of Bronze Bombshell for me and is described as "a beautiful shimmering gold" on the RedAppleLipstick website. I threw it into my selection as a last minute highlight shade so I'd have a somewhat cohesive palette. Surprise, surprise, I've really grown to love it not just as a shimmery highlight (on the browbone, inner corner, cupid's bow, you name it) but also as a pop on the centre of the lid and as a versatile complement to everything and anything. It shows up incredibly pigmented on my skin so I'm gonna take a leap of faith and say it's good to go for everyone: from porcelain to gorgeous deep obsidian skin tones, everyone can find a use out of this colour. It pulls more champagne without looking too grey and ashy so I like it! It blends into the browbone easily, it adds extra drama, it stays put. I'm very fond of this shadow. Golden Ticket is the perfect companion to a glamping trip, both sophisticated and prepared.

Olive this Color is not olive on me. It's not. At the most I'd say it is a fern green meets turquoise colour with a golden shift –– really it reminds me of the colour of seafoam. The kind of colour you'd imagine a mermaid tail to be. On the website it says it is a "muted, earthy green eyeshadow with a soft light golden metallic sheen" and I completely agree. It isn't an olive eyeshadow! Don't let the name fool you. It looks a lot darker on the picture on the website to me. It is one of the sparkliest shades that I picked, it catches the light no matter where you are standing, ultra-metallic in comparison to the other shades in my palette. It looks like it has a blue undertone next to Dirty Girl and the gold sparkle makes it super pretty. On my darker skin it is a nice contrasting colour and it brings out the brown in my eyes. Let me reiterate, the staying power on all of these shadows is supreme. Olive this Color is just pretty. Gorgeous for special occasions, the one you get out for drinking limited edition champagne on your last night of being single. 

Dirty Girl is described as a "medium, mushroom, earthy, khaki taupe with shimmer" on the website and I want to put emphasis on the khaki part of that description. Dirty Girl can be very green, seductive and metallic –– the shimmer isn't always so subtle. It's perfect in a green smokey eye look or on the lower lashline, I really like it for multiple purposes. It can also look bluer and a slightly grey in some lighting, like as shown in the picture above. The formula for Dirty Girl is similar to Golden Ticket: shimmery, blendable and almost highlight like, if not for the colour of it. If I ever try an all black eye maybe I'll use it as a highlight but until that day... Dirty Girl is a dirty transformative cool toned grey greeny-blue that needs a specific mood and the promise of a shameless night out to perform to its full capacity.

Sage Rage made me realise that I'm not the biggest fan of the RedAppleLipstick matte formula, unfortunately. Similar to Espresso, the only other matte shadow that I purchased from them, it swatches dry. This shadow is also the exception to the RedAppleLipstick long staying-power rule, for me. It faded the fastest out of all the shadows, not that it was gone in the blink of an eye but comparably it fell short. By the end of my 8 hour day it didn't look so good. It also takes the most work to get pigmentation out of it. Unlike Espresso, where it's a good idea to go slow because of the colour depth of the shadow, Sage Rage can be quite frustrating (as the name suggests). This is my least favourite shadow of the bunch which is a shame because it looks so gorgeous in pan. It's described as a "muted, earthy, khaki green", personally I think this colour is more of an olive than Olive this Color will ever be, a really nice crocodile green. Shame the formula comes up short for me. Sage Rage is a 50 yard fakeout that has really awesome muscles but cannot actually perform on the field to save his life.

Extra Swatches:


The Look: Golden Ticket as an inner corner, cupid's bow and nose highlight. Bronze Bombshell on the lid, Espresso in the crease and then Vamp buffing it out. A little touch of Chocolate Martini is in the outer V. 

Swatches (from top to bottom): Sage Rage, Dirty Girl, Olive this Color, Golden Ticket, Lucky Penny, Bronze Bombshell, Vamp, Espresso, Chocolate Martini.



The Verdict:

  • When they're good, they're pretty great. 
  • The staying power is awesome on all of these but one. 
  • They're cruelty-free, paraben-free, soy-free, GMO-free, talc-free, dye-free, gluten-free AND vegan. That's impressive and it makes me love using them. 
  • They have shades that work on a variety of skin colours: POC friendly!
  • They are all blendable and the fallout isn't unbearable IMO. 
  • The pan size is good, the same as a MAC, Morphe, Violet Voss etc.

I can't see myself buying anymore of their shadows anytime soon because:

  • The shade selection is relatively small.
  • I do not like the matte formula.
  • The shipping and custom charges kill me because I live in the UK.
  • Not to mention the shadows are by no means cheap, averaging at $18.75 a pop –– that's just under £13 for one shadow.  


Even with the cute free branded Z-Palette they come in and the 4th and 9th shadow free (and the 6th one half price) they are an expensive treat (unsurprising due to the good ingredients and awesome ethics the company employ). This is one of their only large downfalls for me but it's a big one to consider! All in all their shadows are all blendable and do not feel too heavy on the eye at all. I definitely recommend the brand and all of the shadows that I have tried but one.

Have you tried anything from RedAppleLipstick? What would you recommend? I hope you're having an awesome day!

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