Etsy Find: Nightshade Cosmetics LipCrete [Review + Swatches]

I’ve always wanted to buy more makeup from Etsy to support small business owners, but it can sometimes be tricky. I’ve had issues in the past with orders taking forever to arrive, or the makeup just being private-label products. It’s disheartening to pay more on makeup than you would normally spend, just to find out it has been mass-produced and the same product is being sold by hundreds of Etsy stores. So, I have decided to make a sort of series on my blog, and bring to you top quality and unique Etsy makeup products. We’ll kick off this series with Nightshade Cosmetics, a very affordable vegan and cruelty free brand with a goth/badass feel. Those of you who have followed my Medusa’s Makeup reviews know that is right up my alley 

Nightshade Cosmetics sells a unique product called LipCrete – it’s concrete for your lips! Jasmine, the store owner, uses a specially formulated vegan gloss as the base and then adds mica and iron oxide based pigments. She makes each LipCrete to order, and will even create a custom color for you! They are super affordable, at only $3 for a 5 gram jar. She also has a Luscious LipCrete, which is formulated with Vitamin E and Shea Butter for a moisturizing effect – it is $5 for a 5 gram jar.

I purchased five standard LipCretes and one Luscious LipCrete from Nightshade Cosmetics. I bought them from her Etsy store, but you can also find them on Jasmine’s own website.    

I absolutely fell in love with LipCretes! They are extremely pigmented, and they stay glossy all day. I found that the best way to apply LipCrete is to dab on in a downwards motion with a lip brush. A little bit goes a long way, and I estimate you could get 30-40 uses out of one of these 5 gram jars. For only $3, that’s not bad at all!

Just take a look at these swatches, and you’ll fall in love too.  From top to bottom are the shades Diamond, Chromium, Tombstone, Candied, Cryptic, and Solstice.

I’ll take you through each shade, and show you how it looks on my lips. Because I suck at planning, they will not be in the same order as the arm swatch. 😛 I will go through my favorite shades first.

Solstice is such a unique shade, and probably my favorite out of the 6. It is magenta with electric blue undertones, and it looks phenomenal when the light catches it. I love to wear this alone, but I think it would also look really nice as a lip topper.

Solstice was my favorite shade, but Chromium is a close second! This has a metallic finish unlike anything I’ve ever seen. When I wear this, my lips look like they are covered in molten aluminum. This isn’t a shade for the faint-of-heart, but I think you could use it to pull off some crazy looks!

Tombstone is on sale for $2 at the Nightshade Cosmetics website. It is a shimmery gunmetal, and I found it isn’t as reflective as the other shades. It isn’t my favorite color, but I do think it’s more wearable and would appeal to a wider range of people.

Cryptic is a deep burgundy that is SO vampy and gorgeous. It is coming across as a bluish-purple in the lip swatch, but it warmer in real life. The arm-swatch photo represents it more accurately.

Candied is a metallic candy apple red. I found that this shade was trickier to apply than the others, and not as opaque. I tried to build it up to full pigmentation but couldn’t. I had to stop at three layers, because it was starting to get goopy. However, I think that the color is beautiful, and I would definitely wear this over a liquid lipstick to give a glossy metallic finish.

The final shade I tried is Diamond, which is a Luscious LipCrete. The packaging for this is a little nicer, and I can tell the difference in the formula. All of the LipCretes feel moisturizing, but this feels like liquid silk. Diamond is a holographic gloss that is ACTUALLY holographic (any Simply Nailogical fans would be proud). It is not opaque, so I would recommend using it as a lip topper.

In the photo below, I am wearing Diamond over a pastel purple lipstick.

Those were all the shades I tried out, and I was blown away by their quality. Solstice was my favorite shade, but Chromium is the most fun to work with! I worked it into today’s makeup look:

These are the best lip glosses I have ever used. They have strong pigmentation, they last for hours, and they are so affordable! I want to get every color now!! I would definitely recommend these to any makeup lover. And hey, why don’t you check out the rest of Nightshade Cosmetics’ inventory? Jasmine started creating makeup products when she realized that good quality products she loved were out of her budget. So, she started her own makeup company and now sells vegan cosmetics that are actually affordable. She sells nail polishes for $3, powder highlighters starting at $8, and smudge pots for $6.50 – plus much more!

I really hope you enjoyed this review! Let me know if you have any recommendations for more Etsy makeup, and I will try it out. 🙂

XX