Review: Portland Black Lipstick Company
Anyone who went through a babybat phase knows the horrors of costume makeup. Black lipstick in particular is something that’s easy to come by in the Halloween section of the local drugstore. You know the one. Cheap, greasy, lasts about five minutes before melting off your face? Yeah we’ve all been there. Let’s try not to think about it anymore. For a while now I’ve been on the hunt for a perfect grown up black lipstick. “Perfect” meaning it must meet the following requirements:
1. Affordable—there are some higher end black lipcolors out there that get great reviews, but frankly I can’t spend thirty bucks on a lipstick. I have bills to pay, and booze to buy.
2. Opaque—a lot of the cheaper stuff is very sheer. I wanted maximum coverage.
3. True black—not a dark purple or blue like cheaper lipsticks
4. Long lasting—something I can wear all day, every day without having to touch it up often.
After a bit of searching and reading other reviews online, I finally found my perfect match at Portland Black Lipstick Company, a small indie cosmetics company based in (duh) Portland, Oregon. The fact that their products are independently and ethically produced is a bonus on top of meeting all four of my criteria. I bought their Original Black Lipstick back in September, and it’s been my absolute favorite lip color ever since.
At nine dollars plus shipping, it’s way too affordable not to try. Because it’s so inexpensive I had some doubts about it’s quality, but I was pleasantly surprised. You get much more than you pay for here. The photos above were taken after one swipe, and you can see that the color and the coverage is excellent. It has exactly the sort of black leather look I wanted. And it really does last all day! I wear it to work almost every day now and other than touching up after eating, I hardly need to worry about it at all.
The only drawback I can find is that the lip balm style tube it comes in can make application a little messy, but if you’re careful (or use a lip brush) it’s no biggie. Only a small flaw in an otherwise excellent product.
I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a very affordable, high quality black lipstick. They have lots of otherinterestingcolors that I see myself trying in the future. I’ll be sure to post more photos when I do.