Duping Too Faced Melted Peony

Truth time: I love a lot of lipstick formulas that other people hate. This is partially because I am willing to exfoliate my lips daily and deal with a more drying formula in exchange for a matte finish and an apocalypse-proof wear time. I always try to make this clear in my reviews.

But even I stumble on to products that are just too damn wrong for my lips. Meet Too Faced Melted Peony: the most perfect sorta-nude-lip for me, with a great balance of peach and pink. The color is gorgeous...the formula is atrocious. Seriously, I have never put anything so drying or finicky on my lips before--and I wear Ruby Woo on the regular!

And so I went on a long and arduous quest to find a dupe. Most supposed dupes were way too pale and beige, or bubblegum pink with no peach, or in yet another formula I hate with a burning passion. Finally, somebody mentioned Bite Beauty's High Pigment Pencil in Bouquet. Great! I love the Bite formula! After searching numerous swap and sale threads for an on-the-cheap tube, I managed to obtain Bouquet via swap.

Annnnnd I love it.

Daylight on top, flash on bottom.

Here are ze swatches. As you can hopefully see, Melted Peony and Bouquet aren't exactly alike, but they're super similar: Melted Peony is a bit paler and more peach, Bouquet has more pink and is brighter.

I swatched a few other shades in the same-ish color family for comparison. Bite Velvet is brighter, cooler, and more pink than Melted Peony. MAC Faux is actually a muted neutral pink on me, but because it has more brown in it than these other shades, it looks crazy dark in these swatch photos.

Here's how Bite Bouquet looks on my lips. Again, it's definitely a bit brighter than Melted Peony, and it reads more as a peach-pink than a nude. But I think it's a pretty damn good replacement. In a sense, any time I could wear Melted Peony, I can now wear Boquet.

I'll continue to try nude lipsticks because I'm a lipstick fanatic and I love to try ALL TEH THINGS, but for now, I'm oh so happy with Bite Bouquet!

Oh, and yeah, I'm wearing a shit ton of glitter on my eyes. God bless you, Lit Cosmetics Clearly Liquid Base! (The actual glitter in this picture is a limited edition Wet n' Wild product...which may or may not be eye safe. Oops. Do your research--check for it around Halloween!)

FOTD: Hurrah for Glitter!

I should know better than to ask a drag queen what she wants for Christmas/Hannukah/her birthday/insert relate-able celebration here. Every time I ask, I get one of three responses:

1. weave
2. glitter
3. something to tuck with

Lucky for me, friend of the blog Scarlet Fairweather has her tucking routine down pat and understands my limited budget. So she requested #2 for Christmas 2014. But you see, she didn't want just any glitter: it had to be glitter worthy of Bianca del Rio.

I know Miss Bianca wears a lot of OCC products on her eyeballs, but I decided to go with Lit Cosmetics glitters instead. Why? Because they get rave reviews, there are more colors, and they sell a glitter glue that is apparently the bomb. I purchased the shade Cher (particle size 2) for Miss Scarlet. I never expected to try them on my own eyes because I'm a shimmerphobe who lives a rather boring life--not much room for glitter here!

Then the Beautylish Lucky Bag Debacle of 2015 happened, and several folks kindly offered to send my drag queen friend and I MORE Lit glitter on the cheap/for free. (Support your local drag queens, folks!)

We ended up with two packages of the "Hello Sunshine" glitter and mini Lit Clearly Liquid Base glitter primer, so I kept one on my end, fully expecting to never use it. Then Scarlet started swatching and applying them.

Guys...I think I'm falling in love with this glitter.

Overhead lighting is not my friend in general, but regardless: do you see that glitter?! Chanel IdOs are already pretty good stuff, but with some of that Lit glitter-and-primer combo pressed on top, there's ten times more shine and dimension. I know it's trite to say this, but...these photos don't do it justice.

As a sidenote, Scarlet is also wearing the Hello Sunshine glitter under her brows.

BASE: MAC Face & Body in N1 + White, NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer in Chantilly + Maybelline Dream Lumi concealer in Radiant, Dolce & Gabbana powder foundation in 50 Ivory, Skindinavia setting spray

EYES: Too Faced Shadow Insurance, unknown Prescriptives nude shade, Chanel Illusion d'Ombre in Illuisoire, Lit Cosmetics glitter in Hello Sunshine + Lit Clearly Liquid Base, Milani Liquid Eyes pencil in Black, Marc Jacobs O!Mega mascara, Anastasia Brow Wiz in Medium Brown, Anastasia clear brow gel

CHEEKS: Kevyn Aucoin Creamy Moist Glow in Tansoleil, RMS Beauty Living Luminizer

LIPS: Too Faced Melted lipstick in Peony