Review - Jeffree Star Blood Sugar Palette and Love Sick Liquid Lipsticks

Ah, Jeffree Star. The guy who divides opinion up and down the internet, but most people outside the YouTube/beauty/MySpace communities have never actually heard of.

It's not always easy to find an unbiased review on his products due to his controversial past (and present, let's face it). You tend to either get the Jeffree stans who think he can do no wrong in life or business, or you get the people who think he's the worst kind of human to ever exist and therefore think everything he touches is dreadful.

So, as someone who collects and enjoys his makeup, but has no interest in being mates with the bloke, I'm gonna try and give this a go and be as unbiased as I can. There are things I like about these products, and there are things I don't like. I will state that I am not a fan of his Lip Ammunitions, so I didn't purchase those to review and I have absolutely zero interest in having "merch" from any kind of beauty influencer, so I gave the accessories a miss too. What I did purchase was the Blood Sugar palette and the 4 liquid lipsticks. I have collected the liquid lipsticks since the very first launch back in 2014, but I am more than willing to say if and when I find one to be crap (hello summer 2016 collection, I'm talking about you) as the different colours do not perform the same.

The Launch

So, if you are up to date with the gossip in the beauty community, you'll know that this palette launched on February 10th and sold out in 3 minutes. Yep, his first sell out in quite a while (I've not seen his products move this quickly since the launch of his Skin Frosts back in 2016), 100,000 units in 180 seconds. Even the pre orders for the next restock of palettes is sold out currently.

I managed to purchase my products with no problems at all. Added my items to the cart and checked out. I was placed in a queue at checkout but I waited no longer than 30 seconds. By the time I'd made my purchase and had a quick look through Facebook and Twitter, I was seeing people saying that they couldn't order the palette. This was a super fast sell out.

My main problem with Jeffree Star Cosmetics is their customer service. I very much prefer to buy from Beautylish if and when I can, because their customer service is second to none, and my parcels arrive from the USA in around 3 days. Despite paying extra for faster shipping on this order, it took 4 days for them to ship the package from their warehouse, and then a further 9 days for it to get here. I didn't experience any difference by paying the extra shipping costs and I think 4 days to ship out a parcel is ridiculous. Yes, all you Jeffree stans can sit there and bang on about how he's a small business and doesn't have the staff to move out 100,000 palettes, but this is a guy who haemorrages cash on nonsense like designer boomerangs and neon pink self driving cars, you can't tell me he doesnt have the financial means to employ a few more warehouse staff. However, it arrived packaged nicely with plenty of bubble wrap and despite my worries (I have seen a lot of people receive broken palettes) everything was in great condition, and no damage at all, so I was very pleased and incredibly relieved about that!

Blood Sugar Palette

Yep, another warm toned palette. Exactly what ALL of our eyeballs need right now, huh? If I'm honest, I was over the warm toned trend before it even began, I love cool tones and I love colour. I was drawn to this by the pops of colour - that bright pink and red were calling my name! I actually also really loved the look of the cool toned greige type colour in between the pink and purple shades. Actually, despite not being a fan of the warm toned red trend, there are very few colours I would never use in this palette. I don't think I will ever use the shades on the top and bottom right hand sides, or the brown shade, Ouch (I hate that shade name btw), but the others are all colours I will enjoy creating looks with.

The palette comes in what Jeffree describes as a "doctors case". Its very deep and I have to say, the packaging is probably the best I've seen in a very long time. The component is made from cardboard, with a faux leather outer and closes with silver clasps - a completely unneccessary but nonetheless incredibly clever and aesthetically pleasing touch. The palette comes in a cardboard sleeve, which has all of the ingredients etc on.

The shade names are, to put it politely, a little odd. In his reveal video, Jeffree claims that as the palette is based on a doctors case and it's named Blood Sugar, he has chosen lots of medical and dentistry themed names for the shades. I don't particularly associate dentists with diabetes, but I'm gonna let that one slide and go straight to wondering why "tongue pop" and "fresh meat" have been thrown in there. No thanks.

Swatches

I'll add my brush swatch pictures next. I did as I always do - primer, then build up the shadow to my desired opacity (or as opaque as I can get it). I do this because when you use a shadow on the eyes, you won't just swipe your brush over your eyes and think "Oh that's a patchy mess, I'll call it a day and finish now", you build up the colour until it looks good. I will say that after finger swatching these shadows, I can see why he didn't do live swatches on his reveal video - they swatch horribly with fingers, but most of the shades do build up nicely with a brush. Some take a little more work than others, but the pigment is there for most of the colours.

You can see that some of the swatches look quite messy, especially on the second image. This is because I cleaned up (or tried to) an awful lot of fallout from swatching. Fallout and kickup isn't something that bothers me at all really. Usually it means that a shadow has plenty of pigment, and I always do my eyeshadow before I do my base makeup so cleaning up isn't an issue for me. I definitely wanted to mention it though as I know a lot of people were raging about the amount of fallout from the shades in the ABH Subculture palette last year. I do think these shades are more densely packed than Subculture, but the fallout is definitely noticeable.

Is It Eye Safe?!

You may have heard that some shades in this palette are not considered "eye safe". Is this true? Well, the answer to this is that it depends where you live. If you live in the USA then there are shades in this palette that are not deemed to be eye safe, but if you live in the UK then crack on! 

The reason for this, is that certain ingredients that are known to stain the skin are not considered to be "eye safe" or to be used in the immediate eye area by the FDA. The UK has no such rules, we clearly don't care whether we have stained faces or not! So, if you use these shades then please don't worry about your face melting or your eyeballs falling out, all that'll happen is a bit of staining. I used the brightest colours in the palette for this eye look (over primer) and I have minimal staining after approximately 7 hours of wear. 

All in all, I don't think this is a terrible palette. Do I think it's that great that it should've shifted 100,000 units in 3 minutes? Probably not. Will I use it again? Yes, absolutely. Do I think it's worth the $52 price tag? Probably. A lot of the cost will go towards the cost of the packaging, this is much more impressive than the crappy cardboard components his previous palettes came in, BUT knowing that this is now a permanent item, if you're not absolutely desperate to get your hands on this then I'd say wait for one of the Jeffree Star Cosmetics sales and pick it up for a discount instead.

The Love Sick collection also featured 4 liquid lipsticks, 3 Lip Ammunitions and an assortment of "merch" including makeup bags, mirrors and some clothes (I think). I collect the Velour Liquid Lipsticks so I ordered two with the palette (Restraints and Self Control) and then I picked up the other two when they launched on Beauty Bay a few days later. The lipsticks come in the same component as always, but with the limited edition red chrome lids. I do wish he'd wrap in with the limited edition stuff, but I also understand it's a clever business move - make things seem unobtainable so that we want them more (it works like a dream on me, let me tell you).

Three of the four shades are nothing special. We have seen similar colours from him in the past (and in the case of Problematic, the very recent past) - Self Control is somewhere in the middle of Virginity and Blow Pony, Romeo is much like a more neon version of Rose Matter and Problematic just looks like hes chucked the leftovers from the Christmas shades Santa Baby and Berries on Ice in a red top tube. Restraints is completely unique to his collection, however. A metallic finish gunmetal shade, it's unlike anything he has previously released and I think that is fantastic. I fell in love with Jeffree Star Cosmetics because of the exciting shade range - rememeber how we all lost our shit over the blue collection? Or 714? That's what I expect from this brand, and it's been disappointing to see him churning out so many nude and red shades if I'm perfectly honest. I hope this latest release is a sign that he is moving back to his roots, experimenting with colours and having the most unique shade range on the market.

I actually really like all of these shades. Self Control is a very wearable, cool toned lilac. I find that Virginity is far too light for me, and Blow Pony is quite extreme for every day wear, but this shade sits nicely in the middle of the two and I would wear this as an every day lip colour.

Problematic, as I said, is very similar to the berry tones in the Christmas collection, however I much prefer the formula of this to either of the other two. It's a very bold shade, but unlike his previous berry shades, this one applies nicely and isn't patchy or streaky at all. It stained my lips slightly after around 7 hours of wear.

Romeo is a very bright, almost but not quite neon, shade of pink. I love pinks, and I'm a big fan of his shade Rose Matter. This is kind of like Rose Matter on a night out, much more bright and in your face, but also quite wearable if you want to try something a little brighter than a regular nude shade.

Restraints is a very sheer formula. Like most metallic liquid lipsticks, it does take some building up. I found that I needed two coats and had to press the wand onto my lips a little to finish off the application, but it dried down nicely and the extra coat didn't cause any discomfort or irritability to my lips like some brands do when I try and build the colours up.

I love these lipsticks. I have had lots of hits with his liquid lipsticks and plenty of misses too, but these 4 shades are all really nice to apply and wear and very much reminiscent of the "old school" Jeffree lipsticks that applied super opaque in one swipe and lasted forever on the lips, I'm very much hoping that this standard of formula stays!

Jeffree Star Lipstick - Real vs Fake

I have a lot of Jeffree Star's Velour Liquid Lipsticks. All of them, in fact (I know, I know, I'm a terrible person with no morals etc). But there was a period in time where if you didn't grab a new Jeffree release the moment it was available for sale, you missed out. Luckily, either the hype has died down due to his controversies this year, or he really has been working to make more units available for launches. Either way, I could not get hold of Gemini, and I wanted it BADLY!

Gemini was released in the summer, and I was unable to get it on the first release and following restock. So I took myself off to eBay to find one. I didn't think it'd be a problem, I'm pretty good at spotting fakes and I have bought one Jeffree Star product from eBay previously that had been real. I was wrong!

I paid £19.99 for Gemini, a terracotta red matte liquid lipstick. It arrived in a couple of days and I was so mad to find out that it was a fake! I mean, I paid more than retail price for this lipstick, I (wrongly) assumed it would be genuine! Now I have a genuine Gemini bought from Jeffree's website, I've taken some comparison picturess in the hope that this will help other people to spot counterfeit products.

Firstly, let's look at the boxes they come in;

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

At first glance, they appear to be almost identical. The boxes are the same shade of pink, with the metallic JS logo on the front. The writing on the front and sides is identically worded in white lettering. The writing is slightly closer together on the fake one, but the font and colour are the same, and I haven't spotted any differences in spellings - feel free to correct me though!

You can see that the stickers with the shade names are completely different, with the genuine sticker sealing the box closed. The fake has a small colour coordinated sticker with two stars and the shade name. However, if I remember correctly, this is how the lipsticks originally came labelled in the past,

There is also a serial number on the bottom of the real box, with nothing on the fake.

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

Again, the tubes look almost identical. If you look closely though, you can see that the colours differ slightly and that the tube on the fake product is slightly taller than the genuine one. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the counterfeit products have a darker shade of pink on the packaging.

Left: Genuine, Right: Fake

The genuine lipstick has a sticker on the bottom with the shade name, this counterfeit one has nothing on the bottom. Here are some comparison swatches. I swatched them on my arms, and have had no reaction to the fake lipstick, but that does not mean that they don't contain dangerous ingredients, and because of this there's no way I'm risking a lip swatch!

The genuine product is at the top, and the fake underneath. You can see that the fake is darker and more of a brick red than terracotta, but the shade match isn't completely off so I can see how easily people can be duped by these fake items!

Now, the counterfeit lipstick I received may not be identical to another counterfeit produced and sold by someone else, so these are just a guideline. In general, the easiest way to tell a fake Jeffree Star liquid lipstick from a real one, is by the wand. 

Left: Fake, Right: Genuine

The doe foot wand on a Jeffree Star lipstick is quite distinctive (unfortunately, my camera didn't want to focus on it). The doe foot should look a little "fluffy" and have a curve to it, this is to help the wand cover the curves in your lips effortlessly, and the doe foot should be flexible. The wand in a genuine Jeffree Star liquid lipstick is clear, not white.

The wand on this fake product is white, and has a long, flat doe foot applicator. the inner part of the lid is white, where it should be pink and this particular lipstick should have a ""root beer float" (or cat pee as some like to describe it!) scent. A fake will not be scented. Not all of the liquid lipsticks in this range are scented, but if you check the official Jeffree Star Cosmetics website it should say on the shade description if it is scented or not.

I have definitely learned my lesson about buying from eBay, and I hope this blog helps others out! If you're in doubt, message the seller and ask for proof of purchase. Or better still, buy direct from Jeffree Star Cosmetics, Beautylish or one of his other official stockists. A list can be found at https://jeffreestarcosmetics.com/pages/faq. Currently the only UK stockist is Beauty Bay who currently have a huge selection of shades in stock and offer next day delivery for those of us who have a serious makeup addiction and no patience!

Jeffree Star Holiday Collection - Review

Jeffree Star's second holiday collection launched on Black Friday. Seven liquid lipsticks in limited edition red packaging, with two new Skin Frost highlighters launching at the same time. Both Skin Frosts are pink - Regina George, a hot pink and Princess Cut, a baby pink.
The lipstick shades are Deceased, described on his website as a "mauve greige", Checkmate, a bright orange-red, Chrysanthemum, a pink based nude with gold sparkle, Sagittarius, a nude mauve, Crocodile Tears, a deep forest green, Designer Blood, a deep red with gold shimmer and Pumpkin Pie, a beautiful autumnal orange.
Each liquid lipstick retails for $18, or the bundle of all seven is $99.99. The Skin Frosts Retail at $29 each.

The holiday collection is available from the Jeffree Star Cosmetics website and Beautylish. Beauty Bay will be stocking this collection in the future, but as yet there is no confirmed date.

I prefer to buy from Beautylish where possible, as they calculate customs charges for you and you pay on ordering which speeds up the delivery process and you avoid that £8 Royal Mail handling fee which I always begrudge paying! Beautylish also have the most adorable packaging, I love how everything comes wrapped in brown paper with the black and white string, it's so sweet.

Now, on to the lipsticks (I may review the Skin Frosts at a later date).

Here are the arm swatches

Top to bottom; Designer Blood, Crocodile Tears, Chrysanthemum, Sagittarius, Pumpkin Pie, Checkmate, Deceased

They swatch beautifully, and I had no problems with application on my lips either. I had seen someone comment online that Chrysanthemum was patchy, but I did not experience that. For a light colour, it applied really nicely and I had no issues with patchy or streaky application. This is my favourite colour out of the collection.

Apologies, I'm stuck using an iPhone camera for now so my images are pretty dreadful! 

I wasn't expecting Chrysanthemum to last very long on my lips at all due to the pale colour, but I was very pleasantly surprised! It dried down completely and lasted for the 4 hours I wore it. Not a full day's wear but I did eat while I had this on and it didn't budge. This shade also smells AMAZING! Only two of the collection appear to be scented, Chrysanthemum and Sagittarius. Jeffree described it as "cotton candy scented" and while I personally don't get cotton candy from the scent, it is a lovely sweet smell.

Pumpkin Pie was a surprise hit for me. I was not expecting to like this shade. Autumnal colours and warm shades are not something I tend to reach for, but I fell in love with this as soon as I swatched it. 

Pumpkin Pie lip swatch. I know my lips are asymmetrical and I hate them!

When I first swatched Pumpkin Pie I thought it would look great with an eye look using the Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance palette so I had a go at some "fall inspired makeup".

Don't worry, my brows have been reshaped now!!

Once again, no issues with application (this is the same for all of the colours to be honest, they apply like a dream). This is one of the unscented shades. I know a lot of people don't like the unscented liquid lipsticks, but personally, anything that doesn't smell like vanilla is good with me!

Pumpkin Pie wore nicely, although it did start to wear away on the insides of my lips after eating. These lipsticks layer without any issue though, so a quick touch up and you're good to go.

Today I wore Sagittarius. Very close in colour to Deceased, as you can see in the arm swatch, Sagittarius is a pretty nude mauve. Deceased is more grey toned, and pulls quite brown on me (although I didn't get a lip swatch, sorry!) so they do look quite different when they're applied on the lips.

Sagittarius

This is a pretty wearable, every day shade in my opinion. It's just purple enough to stand out from the crowd, but still pretty nude. I paired it with an eye look from the Kat Von D Metal Matte palette today, but this colour would go with most looks.

I applied this lipstick at 2pm and ate a pretty greasy meal (home made chips, I promise I'll join a gym in the new year) and it didn't even wear away on the insides. It's now just after midnight and I still have most of the colour on my top lip and probably about half on the bottom lip. I am incredibly impressed with the staying power of this one!

I haven't had chance to road test the other colours yet, but I can do a part two if you'd like. So far, I am really impressed with this collection. After the summer collection didn't receive the best reviews, I really feel like Jeffree has taken people's concerns and criticism into account and made a good quality collection with a variety of wearable shades. If you can get your hands on this collection, you won't regret it!