Swatch post - OCC Lip Tars

OK, since a certain red-haired someone is clearly bursting to share the word on these, it just seemed cruel to wait until the weekend to write up the OCC Lip Tars.

I initially planned to do a big feature post about the products, the user experience and our encounter with the brand's creators. But there's a lot to say, and a lot of pictures too. So what I'm going to do is - basic swatches now, feature later in the week.

These are the 6 coloured Lip Tars Gemma and I bought on Saturday at IMATS. (Later we got some more things to review, but that's another post.)



We bought three each and split the tubes between us via sample jars, giving us 6 colours each. (Mine are the warm tones, hers are the cool ones, complementary pair that we are.)

Without further ado:

Lip tars in Fondue (brown), NSFW (red), Pageant (pink), Safety Orange (orange), Melange (peach/nude) and Hush (pale pink), swatched on MAC NC15 skin.

It goes almost without saying that these pictures show but a tiny fraction of the brightness of these colours. And that this is just about the least interesting thing you can possibly do with them: these colours are made to be mixed up and invented with, not just worn straight.


Fondue is, believe it or not, the least pigmented of our selection. It's slightly translucent. Sorry about the wonky application here.


NSFW is a blue-based red - normally not something I can wear (blue tones+me=fail.)


Pageant - actually much more pink than this. See Gemma's swatch in earlier post.


Safety Orange... my new love.


Melange - dare I say it, a workday lip tar?


Hush - with opacity to die for, this is a great one for mixing and lightening the darker shades.

As a control, here are my denuded lips.


One thing is clear when working with these - they're not lip gloss. You only need a very small amount of product and you need to use a brush to apply. And in fact the less you use, the better the effect, based on my experience with them so far. They do have a tendency to bleed if overapplied. I found the best way to apply is to start in the middle of the lip and work out - using an almost-dry brush to kind of blur the colour along the lip edges.