Lime Crime Velvetines Vs. Savvy Ultra Matte Lip Colour

So everyone by now has heard about the whole Lime Crime saga (and a saga, it really is). I actually caught onto everything really late – I dunno where I was (and I had liked Lime Crime on Facebook and Instagram) but I was seriously not with it lol I caught on when I heard that Lime Crime wouldn’t be selling their products via different online retailers and instead would be making customers use their website only, as sole suppliers. I ain’t no business genius (or am I?), but if your having security issues regarding payment systems and loosing customer trust and satisfaction – making customers buy your products only via your website isn’t all that smart in my opinion. It’s possible that I would have still bought some of their products via Australian e-retailers since I love their Velvetine Matte Lipsticks, but I’m not taking the risk and buying from their site directly after the bungles that they have had. Customer service is also a dying art these days and I’d rather support smaller brands that I know listen to their customers (criticisms included) and do everything to make their shopping experience brilliant, rather then waste time of companies who are only interested in profit and building up their own egos. I was left in a bit of a pickle because as I mentioned, I really liked and still do, Lime Crime’s Velvetines (matte liquid lipsticks) but need to find alternatives, seeing as once I run out, I won’t be repurchasing them. My current love is the Velvetine in the colour Utopia – a medium toned, very vibrant, neutral purple. So unique and a gorgeous, that it pained me to think that I could forever run out of this shade…

Until a bright sunny day saw me hop along to Priceline for a sneaky midday browse. I couldn’t believe it when I spotted Savvy’s Ultra Matte Lip Colours at Priceline, and saw their liquid lipstick in Icon – also a medium toned, matte purple, which looked suspiciously familiar. Could this be a dupe for Utopia, taking into consideration the massive price difference?  I also spotted a pink Ultra Matte Lip Colour which I thought could be somewhat similar to Lime Crime’s Pink Velvet Lip Velvetine (which I also own), called Rodeo Drive. I snapped up both and prayed they would be! Are they dupes and how do they compare? Let’s take a look!

From first glances, even the packaging of both products is similar. Both the Velvetines and the Ultra Matte Lip Colours are packaged in a frosted glass tube, which optically makes the amount of product in the tubes appear to be quite generous. Funnily enough, both products don’t contain a whole lot of product – the Velvetines contain 2.6 ml of product and the Ultra Matte Lip Colours contain 2ml each. The Velvetines packaging is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye (cute cap and all), but it’s what’s on the inside that counts (the most) right?

Velvetines comes in at $20 USD, this works out to be about $26 Australian dollars currently (plus you’d also have to factor in shipping). The Ultra Matte Lip Colours are only $7.99 Australian dollars. The Velvetines thus work out to be twice as expensive if not more, should you factor is exchange rates and shipping costs. Both products apply wet to the lips with the help of a doe foot applicator and dry down to a totally matte finish.

Swatches L to R: Pink Velvet (Lime Crime Velvetine), Rodeo Drive (Savvy Ultra Matte Lip Colour), Utopia (Lime Crime Velvetine) and Iconic (Savyvy Ultra Matte Lip Colour).

The finishes of both products is very alike – very pigmented and totally matte once dry. I would say that the Velvetine’s are slightly more thin in consistency and because of this they dry down and set much quicker. You would also then need to use less product – in saying that, the Ultra Matte Lip Colours are not thick in texture by any means, they just take a little longer to dry down and set into place.

 From the swatches, you can see that Lime Crime’s Pink Velvet is a darker pink than Savvy’s Rodeo Drive. I applied the Velvetine to my top lip and the Ultra Matte Lip Colour to my bottom lip to test out the resemblance between the two colours.

Is it a direct dupe? No. Savvy’s Rodeo Drive is lighter and cooler in tone. It’s close perhaps – but not a dupe in my books unfortunately. Let’s take a look at the purples now instead! Again, the Velvetine is on my top lip (Utopia) and Savvy is on my bottom lip (Iconic).

From the photo you can see that Iconic is lighter than Utopia – BUT this difference is very, very minimal, especially once Iconic totally dries down. I would say that it is indeed a dupe (9 out of 10). The difference is more noticeable in the photo , but in real life the difference is minimal – I wouldn’t expect anyone to actually pick up the difference (I asked members of my family, and no one saw a difference between the colours on my top and bottom lip – yay!).

Both products are very resistant when it comes to drinks and food – unless the food is very greasy and hot. If you are eating something hot and greasy, then the Savvy Ultra Matte Lip Colours do wear down a little more quickly however, they do not go patchy or gross – they wear down evenly and it is not a pain to touch up either product.

In conclusion, the Savvy Ultra Matte Lip Colours are quite impressive and you cannot go past how budget friendly they are to boot ($8! That’s like a McChicken meal at Maccas). I am so so happy that I have found a dupe for Utopia – I am very happy with the colour of Iconic. I’m not so wowed by Rodeo Drive, just because I think slightly darker pinks are a little more wearable and it’s not a complete dupe of Pink Velvet. I will keep looking for Lime Crime Velvetine dupes, so stay tuned if you like I, like Velvatines, but would rather find alternatives going forward. If you can recommend any liquid matte lip lipsticks (because of their fab formulas or colour range) let me know!

*I will also add this, I also have Red Velvet and Suedeberry Velvetines (from way back when they were first released) and I do think the quality has changed over time. The old Velvetines I have aren’t as ‘watery’ in consistency, but still dry down to a matte finish very quickly. The newer Velvetines have a really strong play-doh scent to them, which the old ones don’t have. Unfortunately, I think they have changed the formula over time and not for the better (they smell funky now and the consistency makes the product difficult to control because it is so thin and dries so quickly – it’s difficult to fix mistakes as a result). You can see that the swatches of the Velvetines on the back of my hand are not neat and this is because they are so thin and watery in texture – so messy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s to drive up their profit margins, but that’s another story for another day 😛

Until next time,

Beauty Bee~

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