Bite Beauty Lip Lab and Custom Lipsticks!

Bite Beauty is a Toronto company that makes natural lip products. They're available at Sephora and are fantastic - lip care products, lipstick and lipgloss all made with natural ingredients and safe enough to eat. In New York City they have a Lip Lab where you can have custom lip colours made. That's right, custom lip colours. You can have your own custom lipstick made. Why has no one thought of this before?

I got to have a custom lipstick made on a recent trip to New York. The whole process took about 15 minutes, and it was fascinating to see how lipstick is made.

The first step is to create your colour. When I first heard about the Lip Lab and decided to visit, I had two colour options in mind - a coral and a deep burgundy. When I walked in the door of the Lip Lab I had my choice made - I was going to have my own custom dark burgundy vampy colour created. 

The first step was to have the colour created. The first station was this one, where vials of colour were displayed. 

I told the beauty lab tech what shade I was wanting (dark, vampy burgundy) and what finish I'd like. Rather than a matte, which deep vampy colours tend to come in, I chose a cream finish. The lab tech started mixing colours. While she did that, I was given some of Bite Beauty's cherry lip scrub to get rid of any existing colour I was wearing and then some lip balm to hydrate.

I tried on the first shade she mixed for me - a combination of mulberry, scarlet and pomegranate - and I liked it, but it wasn't quite vampy enough, so I asked if it could be darkened. A bit more of the mulberry and scarlet was added and I tried on the new shade. It was perfect! I hadn't worn anything like it before. 

Getting the correct shade was so easy, I was surprised and even contemplated getting a second one made, but then remembered my budget. 

The next step was choosing the scent/fragrance. There were six options to choose from - citrus, mint, violet, mango, superfruit and cherry - and you could also choose a combination of these. All smelled incredible, but I opted for a combination of cherry and mint. Sweet and fresh.

These are all of the colours used to make the lipsticks. They kind of look like candy or colourful chocolates. 

The portions of mulberry, scarlet and pomegranate that were going to be made into my lipstick were melted down and then put into a centrifuge to be mixed. That's the white machine in the above photo. 

While my lipstick was being mixed, I was given the choice of four lipstick case lids. They're designed to look like four of the common shapes lipsticks are worn down to. I chose the one closest to how my lipsticks end up looking, the one on the right. 

After mixing, the liquid lipstick is poured into these gadgets to be shaped into that lipstick bullet shape. Then these gadgets are placed on a cooling unit to set. This gadget is so cold that you can't touch it with your bare skin. My lipstick is in the front gadget and two custom lipsticks were setting for a called-in order behind it. 

That's the thing, with my custom lipstick, I got a card with the recipe on it so I could get another made when I run out or lose it. 

The whole process took about 30 minutes and it cost $45 US. It's pricey, but it's custom!

I was warned not to apply the lipstick for 25 minutes after I left the Lib Lab since it would still take more time to set. 

So let's take a look at it. 

My lipstick was packaged in a sturdy grey box, just like the regular Bite lipsticks. It got a little bit smudged in the packaging, but I don't care. It's a messy process creating a lipstick from scratch and I'm impressed with how tidy the Lip Lab was, considering. 

Ingredients

And here's the sturdy, grey Bite lipstick tube with that playfully shaped lid. 

And here it is! I've been toying with some names for it and think I have one, though it's more related to this blog post and my camera than the lipstick itself. I'll reveal it later. 

In addition to the tube of lipstick, I was given a glass jar of product as well, containing almost the same amount as in the tube. So basically, I got two lipsticks for the price of one!

So what is the name I came up with for my custom lipstick? Furious. I am calling it Furious because trying to capture the colour of it accurately made me furious. I took over 300 photos of it, with a variety of camera settings and a variety of lighting and it kept reading as a bright red, which it is not. The last thing I need is another red lipstick, and what was made for me is not red, it's burgundy. But my camera would not capture it accurately. I got so frustrated and yes, at some points, furious. 

But I've included photos taken on my iPhone as these show the lipstick fairly true to reality. The photos just aren't as good quality as those I can capture on my camera, so I apologize.

iPhone photo, no flash, indoor light.

iPhone photo, no flash, indoor light.

iPhone photo, no flash, natural light

Furious is a burgundy but it's got more warmth than cool tones to it. When it reads more red in some light (and in many photos), it has almost a brick tone to it. 

So now that you've seen the true colour, here are some photos that will give you a sense of the sheen and texture. And you can also see the trouble I had capturing the true colour.

Here you can see how glossy the lipstick is and also, how opaque it is.

Swatched on the back of my hand. NW15 skintone. Flash.

 Another view.

Swatched on the back of my hand. NW15 skintone. Flash.

Here it is actually on my face, but looking like a glossy red lipstick, not a glossy burgundy.

NW15 skintone, with flash. 

NW15 skintone, with flash. 

This is the best photo I took with my camera that captures some of the burgundy colour, but it's lighter than in reality. 

NW15 skintone, natural light.

Furious applies beautifully, with a creamy texture. A colour like this requires precision, and really, a lipliner. I do not currently own a lipliner in a burgundy shade, so I did not use one in these photos. I did use a lip brush to carefully, carefully apply it. Since it is so creamy, it can be a little messy, so I'll be picking up a lipliner to use with it.

I can wear it like I do in the photos above, or I can tap a little on my lips with a fingertip for more of a stained effect.

The cherry-mint scent and flavour tingles a little on the lips and it smells and tastes delicious. It did not feel drying and it did not settle into the lines on my lips as nearly every lipstick I've tried wearing for the last few months has. 

This is a special occasion lipstick but I plan to make occasions to wear it. It's too exciting and awesome not to.

I highly recommend checking out the Bite Beauty Lip Lab in New York City. It's in Soho, at 174 Prince Street. And next time you're in a Sephora, make a point of checking out the Bite Beauty line. They're Canadian, they're food grade quality products and they're beautiful.

So what colour would you get if you could have a custom colour made?

C.