Bite Beauty High Pigment Pencil

This High Pigment Pencil is the second Bite Beauty product I own, with the first being the Lip Shine in Vintage, from the previous Sephora Favorites Give Me Some Lips 2012. I like that lip gloss a lot and carried it around in my bag for a while, so I was excited to try out this lip pencil from the Give Me Some Lips 2013.

Sephora Favorites Give Me Some Lips 2013 edition set includes (as pictured on the outer packaging) Buxom Full-On Lip Polish Dolly, Laura Mercier Lip Glace Bare Pink, Fresh Sugar Rose Mini Tinted Lip Treatment, Tarte LipSurgence Lip Luster Glitzy (will review later), Nars Lip Gloss Turkish Delight, and this Bite Beauty High Pigment Pencil Rhubarb. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

These High Pigment Pencils are shimmer free matte colors, and most look opaque as to deliver a full coverage. And full coverage it is - check out the swatch, it's quite pigmented! The formula is not balmy like Clinique Chubby Stick. It's not moisturizing like my discontinued favorite Stila Lip Glaze Sticks. It's not creamy and buttery like NARS Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil either! It goes on like a lipstick, with a thin, somewhat waxy texture, feels like a lipstick, wears like a lipstick, it even smells like a lipstick. In short, this is a pigmented lipstick in a pencil. And despite the matte claim there is a subtle sheen (see swatch).

- Rhubarb: this color swatches a plummy red but goes on my lips more of a plummy rose, a lot pinker. It's opaque and is not quite my taste, I sheer it out a bit, applying just a thin layer on the upper lip and press for more natural looking stain. I think it's quite pretty worn this way! That said, given the formula is ho-hum, no different than your average lipstick, I probably won't buy another color.

From left to right: Buxom Dolly, Laura Mercier Bare Pink, NARS Turkish Delight, and Bite Rhubarb (bottom).