May Lippy Review: Beauty Bakerie Lip Whip in Cranberry Stiletto

I just did a review yesterday on the Beauty Bakerie Lip Whip in Versailles – a light mauve shade, so I thought that I would review a darker shade to see if there was a difference in performance! Today’s review is in the shade Cranberry Stiletto. If you haven’t seen the review on Versailles yet, I hope that you would give it a quick look as a lot of the descriptions will be the same and that review will be slightly more in-depth as I don’t want to repeat.

These Lip Whips are matte liquid lipsticks with “all day coverage in just one pigmented application”. This is sold at USD20 on the Beauty Bakerie website for 5ml of product; I got mine from the Cult Beauty website for £16 each instead because I live in Europe and I don’t want to incur import shipping taxes and custom delays.

The product comes in a frosted transparent lip-gloss tube, with the actual colour of the lipstick showing through, with a doe-foot applicator and a turquoise cap. I like how the packaging looks but I think that the applicator is not efficient – it does not apply enough product on the lips and require multiple pumps for a full lip application.

Cranberry Stiletto is described as a “bitten berry” shade. I would describe it as a dark berry red, with a lot of the red showing through and it is really beautiful; I think it would be a stunner on people with snow white skin – even though I don’t, I love how it looks. The berry shows through more as you layer it up, but with just one layer more of the red shows up.

The lip whips have a liquid texture – it feels gel-like when freshly applied on the lips and takes nearly 5 minutes to dry down. It’s incredibly and disgustingly sticky when wet – do not rub your lips together before it’s dry because it will turn out very patchy. It takes a lot of practice to get an even application, especially for this darker shade. I do not recommend putting lipbalm or any product on your lips before applying this, because it would be incredibly difficult to get an even application afterwards.

When it’s dried down, just like Versailles, it becomes really tight and uncomfortably dry. It shrinks up the lips because it’s so dry and the lip lines become more obvious – but this is less drying for me as compared to Versailles. It’s still not a comfortable liquid lipstick though and I would highly recommend a balm or gloss on top but that would reduce the wear time.

The swatches above are only with one layer – Cranberry Stiletto is full coverage. That said, getting an even application is incredibly important because there’s no room for mistake given how high coverage it is but it is also very hard to apply an even layer. Too thick and it bleeds, too thin and it will look patchy. If you accidentally draw a bad line on your lips, the rest of the makeup is pretty much ruined because it’s very difficult to alter it.

I find that the lasting power to be much higher for Cranberry Stiletto than for Versailles. This lasted 4 to 5 hours on me without food and left behind a light stain, and it becomes a few shades lighter with a light lunch but doesn’t last through dinner. It might also be because it’s a very dark shade so I make more effort to have a full even application each time, as compared to Versailles. However, I do not see the “all day coverage” that it claimed to have.

I really wished that this was so much better than it turned out to be. Cranberry Stiletto is a gorgeous shade but one that takes so much effort to put on. It’s not a comfortable lipstick to wear, and the process of putting it on is very tedious. I wanted so much to love these Lip Whips and thought they would be the answer to the mysterious long lasting lipstick that everyone seem to be able to find but I never could, but alas these are not.