Yaaaaaaaay!

I’ve been waiting for a set like this to come out! This little darling is a new release, the OCC Lip Tar Primary Pack. It is a set of five min-sized matte Lip Tars, all in “primary” shades. (The pack also includes their full-sized precision lip brush–which I’m collecting in droves, with all my Lip tar love–and a portable five-sleeve plastic pack especially sized for the minis, which is nice for storage and/or travel.

Let me digress for a moment, with my standard quick explanation of Lip Tars, which you may choose to skip if you’ve heard my spiel before: OCC stands for Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics and Lip Tars are quite possibly the product that they are best known for. They are liquid lipsticks that apply like a gloss, going on slick and moist, but drying down to a satin or matte lipstick-like finish. They come in dozens of colors, and can be mixed to create custom shades.

They are vegan, free of cruelty, and gluten-free. One thing to note is that they do contain peppermint oil for preservative  purposes, so if you are sensitive to that oil or its scent, keep that in mind. Being Queen of Sensitive Skin over here, I can say that for me they did not cause any sort of reaction, other than being a bit drying. Okay; enough of that.

On to this neat little set. As soon as I saw this come to Sephora, I snatched it up…

I mean–just look at those possible color combinations. Ahhhhhhhh! ::swoons::

For a long time, I’ve been wanting to get into the crazier mixing aspects of OCC Lip Tars. They’ve had these funky, primary color shades available for some time now, but I could never justify purchasing a full tube. I mean, let’s be honest; how often will I use blue and yellow, for instance? Maybe I’d use them straight up on Halloween or for some sort of crazy look now and again, but mostly they’d be used for what I believe is their intended purpose: mixing with other colors to change the shade or add depth. Given how little of this sort of product is needed to achieve a full lip to begin with, I’d really only be using the tiniest dot here and there to blend… And that means a lot of product would likely just sit there, eventually going to waste.

Enter this awesome solution: minis!

Now, let’s get something straight. This set retails for $29.00 (with a “retail value” of $40.50) at Sephora, which would be an astounding value if they were full sized tubes. They are not, of course; they are only 0.08 oz each (vs. the full sized 0.33 oz) Knowing these are mini and seeing the actual size in person, however, might be a bit of a shock to someone used to the full size. They’re tiny! Adorably little and cute, of course, but still pretty darn little. I use an acrylic lipstick organizer to store my lip tars and I can easily fit three of these minis (larger crimped end of the tube facing down) in one slot.

So when I say tiny, I really meant it! Of course, that’s kind of why they appealed to me, personally–I wanted just a little bit of each crazy color to play around with, with the logic being that I could always order a full size tube later if I change my mind and realize that one of these is something I would use frequently. Even then, give how tiny of a dot you need to get rich, opaque color from these Lip Tars, it would likely still take months of frequent use for me to use up these minis!

Enough talk; let’s take a look at the color. At first I wasn’t going to do lip swatches of these , as NSFW is probably the only color I ever realistically see myself wearing solo on the lips. The others will be mixers only for me, so I thought I’d look pretty silly with bright blue lips… Buuuuuuuut then I figured, ah what the hell; that’s what people come here for!

Let’s get a little crazy!

Look at how pigmented those are. ::loves::

Feathered: pure white, to lighten.

Yikes; this one did not play well with my lips! I couldn’t get an even coating and it just highlighted every crack and crevice, making the edges of my lips look all red and gross… Aren’t you glad I took a lip swatch??

Seriously though; I could never dream of pulling this off on its own. I’m far too pale and it looked ghastly. However, Feathered is a shade I can see myself using often to brighten and lighten up other lip tars. This is probably the most straight forward and multi-purpose color in the bunch. I mean–it’s white. Plain and simple white. It will do just what it says it will aaaaand that’s about all I can think to say about it.
Traffic: true primary yellow.

Yowza, that’s yellow! (Hmm, that would make an interesting alternate name: Yowza Yellow.)

Again, this is a color that really highlights every dry bit on the lips and makes them look pretty terrible. I also think this color just looked so damn bizarre on its own; it washed me out yet made me look sort of sickly too…? I don’t know; it’s hard to explain. Let’s just say, it was not a good look for me, in any
case.

Again, this will find use as a mixer. I love coral lip colors, so I think I will wind up using this one pretty often. I’m curious to see how it mixes with the multitude of pink shades I currently own, as well as with some of the reds. I must admit, I’m also terribly curious to see what kinds of green I can create with this and Rx. Might have to start planning this year’s Halloween look around that… I found this color to be the most drying one of the set. It clung to every dry bit on my lips and I had to stop to scrub them before going on to the next color.

NSFW: true, balanced red.

Now, this one I like! I liked it a lot more than I had expected to, really. As I said earlier, this is the only color in the pack I could see myself using solo.

Thankfully, this color also went on the most smoothly of all five colors. Its a bold, beautiful red that makes for an awesome statement lippie. This is the quintessential bright, true red I’ve been searching for my whole life and I think that it looks fantastic alone, and will also look awesome mixed in to other colors to punch up their redness. I mean, come on; look at that coral they made with NSFW/Traffic/Feathered on the package insert? Soooooo up my alley! I can’t wait to try that one out!

This color has a fair amount of staining, like all of the other red OCC Lip Tars I have tried, but I found myself really liking the color it left behind. My lips had a pretty even wash of color, giving them that flushed/bitten kind of look–not bad! The color itself might be a little too intense for a day at the office–not surprising, given its name–but I just might try applying it, then blotting away, just to get that stained effect!

Rx: true cyan blue.

There is something I just love about the strangeness of this color. While blue lips are far from the norm, I actually liked the way this looked on. I turned to my husband and warned him that I intend to find a way to wear this one to Comic Con this year, since its pretty much the only place I can think of where I can without people giving it a second look. As far as mixing goes, Rx will likely be good for adding a punch of berry tones to pinky colors. That gorgeous lavender color they made mixing NSFW and Rx on the package insert really appeals to me, so perhaps I will have to experiment…

This color did stain my lips a bit, and I needed some heavy duty makeup remover to get all the residue off.

Tarred: true black, darkens.

As you can see, this one feathers quite easily. Other than that, I think it’s probably one of the most “wearable” blacks I’ve seen. It can actually be applied pretty sheer, or built up to become more opaque. Where was this during my long lost goth years in high school?

Maybe this one will de-throne Feathered as the primary mini I wind up using most! I love how just the tiniest dot of this shade instantly darkens up any color. As a fan of deep, dark crimson lips who does not yet own either the Black Dahlia or Anita lip tars (a crime, I know), I’m very excited to experiment with the reds I own, when paired with this true black.

Surprisingly, Tarred didn’t stain my lips all that much!

Verdict

Awesome little set if you just want a taste of these colors, without wanting to shell out full price for the full size tubes.

Is the set price a bit inflated? Yes, probably. The actual value of the tubes is only around $20.00 if you do the math, but they are factoring in the price of the full sized lip brush too I suppose. (Which I kind of wish they didn’t. As a Lip Tar enthusiast, I really do have close to a dozen full and mini sized lip brushes from OCC by now.)

Still–if you want to dip your toe into the world of primary Lip Tar colors without committing to a big tube, this is the only way to do it, that I know of, at the moment. These little guys are packed with plenty of product to play around with, and–as mentioned earlier–all of them are available in full size tubes, should you fall in love with one and want more than the mini can provide.