Sunday 29 May 2011

Swatcharama - Morgana Cryptoria Lipsticks (Take 2)

Morgana Cryptoria (formerly Morgana Minerals) is a great little indie company that is famed for it's vegan lipsticks. I have quite a few and some samples and for the most part I really love them. They now cost $12 (though the pastel formula are only $9) which is a bit pricier than most indie companies. However these come in proper lipstick tubes and (for the most part) are a lovely, long lasting creamy formula. They come in lots of colours from more neutral tones to really unusual shades. Great for finding really unique colours.
Samples are now only available for a short time after each new lipstick is released (I believe) which I think has to do with them drying out more quickly... Or something. Some of the ones I had (which were bought ages ago when the samples were still in baggies, now they're in clamshells) were very hard to apply and that can give you the wrong idea about the full size lipsticks, the vast majority of which have a fantastic formula so I do understand why they have basically been discontinued. However It's a shame. I very rarely buy any makeup without getting samples first (or if it's not indie then testing it in the shops) and while I could afford to take a chance on, for instance, an Evil Shades or High Voltage lippie which cost $4.25 and $6.50 respectively I couldn't really spend $12 on a lipstick that I couldn't be sure I would like. And that makes me really really sad because I love the Morgana lippies I have and there are so many new colours I like the look of :(

Having said that, Morgana has a lipstick membership program where for $25 a year you get all lipsticks for $9 plus extra exciting things. And Morgana is currently having a  25% off sale of the lipsticks. So they're $9 for everyone or $6.75 for Coven members.
So at this price I can afford to buy some new ones and will have new swatches soon :)

Sadly a lot of the colours I have are now discontinued which sucks cause there are great colours. I'm sharing them all anyway.  Another thing to mention is that some of the colours were recalled. Melissa was absolutely fantastic about this (you can see her post about it here) she made the recall as widely know about as possible  and offered a refund or exchange items without anyone having to send back her products. The problem was that the manufacturer gave her misinformation and it turned out some ingredients contained either carmine (making them not vegan) or pigments that weren't lipsafe in the US (they're fine in the EU and Canada though, oh you crazy regulations!). As soon as she found this out the recall was announced, the lipsticks with the non FDA approved ingredients were discontinued and the non vegan ones were moved to a separate section of the website and marked specifically as being non-vegan. I have some of these colours and still use them, if they're classified as safe in the EU I will assume they're fine and the FDA is just being picky :P

Anyway here be tonnes of swatches!
 Azalea - Fuschia pink (discontinued):




Cauldron - Very opaque black with silver glitter (disconitnued):


Coraline's Kiss - metallic slightly muted reddish coral colour:

Lillian (lurve that name :P ) - metallic bluey lilac (discontinued):


Metallic Maiden - Lovely coppery metallic red (Discontinued):


Glittering Poinsettia - deep 'bloodish' red colour with a smattering of gold glitter (Discontinued):


Raspberry - muted dark raspberry colour, smells like raspberries. (Discontinued):


Serenity - Cyan blue with a tiny amount of shimmer (discontinued but close in colour to Sub-Zero which is still available):


Shrieking Violet - true and gorgeous vivid purple. Sadly this one is very very dry and I can't apply it properly, which is a shame because I love the colour most of all. I don't know if I just got a dodgy tube:

Slime - Lovely slightly metallic lime green (discontinued):


Turquoise - Blue based deep turquoise (Discontinued):


Watermelon - Lovely light pink with a slight green sheen/shimmer (discontinued)


Valentine - metallic and glittery bright pink (Discontinued):



Mini Pots (now discontinued):
Medusa - deep green/gold colour (discontinued):


Azalea Blue - fuschia pink with a blue sheen:



Violet's Kiss - This one had some application problems and was just a bit of a perculiar colour on me. It's sort of a reddy-browny-purple with a touch of grey and a metallic finish. (discontinued)


Russet - Lovely red brown with a strong green shift (discontinued)



Samples (now only available for a brief time when new colours are released). Some of these had application problems due to the samples drying out, the actual lipsticks would not have these problems. Also I took these photos a while back before I got really good at lip swatches, so sorry if some are a bit out of focus and things.

Blood - deep dark brownish red, the colour of dried blood :P (discontinued)


Blueberry - Lovely very slightly metallic deep blue (discontinued)


Devilish - Deep brownish red colour (discontinued):


Grape - blue based bold purple (discontinued):


Ice Queen - light greenish frosty turquoise (discontinued):


Margerita - muted red raspberry colour (discontinued):


Mistress - deep dark slightly blackened red:

Pumpkin - coppery reddish metallic orange (possibly discontinued or possibly renamed either Pumpkin Eater or 24K Pumpkin):


Gunmetal Blue - deep metallic grey blue (discontinued):

Nightshade - dark blue based purple (discontinued)


Ravenna - Black/red:


Red Licorice - creamy smooth true red (discontinued):


Serpent - metallic dark green with blue tones (discontinued):


Silverwitch - a darkish silver colour:


Very Cherry - Lovely true red with a hint of red glitter:
 
Spellbound - metallic denimish blue (discontinued):


I hope you liked seeing these and that your favourites are still available!

14 comments:

  1. Argh, the nicest ones are all discontinued!

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  2. I LOVE Turquoise and Shrieking Violet, such a shame that they are discontinued! What a fab collection you have, though!

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  3. I love the formula of her lippies but I'm kinda sad because when I finally got to my second Morgana order on my wishlist a bunch of the colors I wanted were discontinued. I went to get full sizes of Rasperry, Azalea, and Valentine-whoops, lol. I guess I should have checked in on them while I was waiting to order. I'm kicking myself for waiting so long!
    Anyhow, your swatches are amazing as always!!

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  4. Such a dem shame about Turquoise. Maybe GCC's Hipster Ariel is similar enough... but good lord GCC has expensive shipping for low-volume purchases!

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  5. Holy cow, I love Medusa! It's such a weird color for the lips.

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  6. Argh Red Licorice is beautiful, and Violet's Kiss reminds me of MAC Club eyeshadow. You're such a trooper for doing all these swatches, I imagine your poor lips must have been sore afterward :O

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  7. Azalea Blue is so amazing!

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  8. I love your swatchoramas! I have Shrieking Violet and it's quite dry and patchy for me, too.

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  9. My "Shrieking Violet" sample from 2 months ago was a bit dry & patchy too, but she just reformulated it within the past couple weeks, & my full-size one is creamy & the color applies quite nicely now.
    "Azalea Blue" & "Love Lies Bleeding" are 2 of my favorites.

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  10. Too bad Blueberry and Grape are discontinued, those are awesome colours! I also really love Medusa!

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  11. Too bad Lillian is discontinued, it's soooo pretty!

    Also, the FDA rules are no longer protecting consumers as much as they are protecting corporations' profits, especially big oil. Practically the only dyes you are allowed to use in US cosmetics are from petroleum sources.

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  12. I actually love Slime and Turquoise! It's a shame she's discontinued (probably had to for ingredient reasons?) a few really lovely shades... and good god, you have an awesome lippie collection!

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  13. I've got Shrieking Violet, too, and could never get it to quite behave the way I thought it ought. It's also rather old, though, so maybe I'm just being unreasonable and should toss it. (I mean, it can't stay good forever, right? It will eventually go rancid, and that can't help the color.)

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  14. Konad-licious:
    :( Most of the ones I own are discontinued! BUT Morgana has got a tonne of new colours that look just as nice, if not nicer than these, I'm just too poor to get any :P

    PrettyunDead:
    Thank you! Shrieking Violet is still available! :)

    beautyfromanotherplanet:
    I'm the same, there were lots I wanted full sizes of and now they're gone forever :( And thank you!

    Sapiens:
    I've never tried GCC so I can't say for sure but from swatches I've seen Hipster Mermaid looks a lot paler than Turquoise.

    thecandiedmango:
    It is! It's really unique :)

    SilhouetteScreams:
    Naah, these were done in 2 batches so my lips weren't so bad. But they do get sore doing these posts in general. I have sore lips all the time anyway :P

    Phyrra:
    It is! I need a full size of it!

    Robyn:
    Thank you! I heard that she reformulated it a while ago, so maybe it's nicer now. I wish it applied well, the colour is so beautiful.


    MissJupiter:
    Ah! That's good to know, maybe I'll buy a new tube of it when I can afford to! :)

    Vulcan_Butterfly:
    Yeah, I wish they were all still available!

    Nocta Dea:
    It is. There's a new colour, Lilliana which is supposed to be similar. I've only seen one swatch so far but it looked paler to me.
    I don't really understand the FDA at all. But it's still great that as soon as Melissa found out it wasn't allowed she offered a recall :)

    Cydonian:
    I own every lipstick under the sun! :D I love Slime, it's such a cool weird colour.

    kathyeffingjacobs:
    Yeah I'm wondering if I should chuck mine out, I just can't get it to work, but it's such a lovely colour!

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