Bite Beauty Virtual Lip Lab Experience + My Custom Lipsticks!
Recently, Bite Beauty started doing virtual Lip Lab experiences, and I was invited to try it out myself (free of charge), where I was able to make two custom lipsticks, which are reviewed below.
I’ve always wanted to go, but boo!hiss! if they didn’t put in a location that would have worked after I moved away from the area, so it was neat to be able to do it virtually. They’re still offering $15 off each custom lipstick with code LIPHOME (so $45 for one or $90 for two).
I used my phone to login and meet with Fran, who works out of the Brooklyn Lip Lab, and was extremely encouraging, patient, and all-around lovely to work with. She had a good working knowledge of Bite’s offerings, both past and present, and really walked me through the process.
It takes about a half hour to create each shade, depending on how many tweaks and attempts you have them do. It took closer to 40 minutes to create the red and only 20 minutes to create the green shade. There are four finishes to choose from–matte, satin, luminous, or sheer–and I ended up with satin for both, which is pretty much the now-discontinued Amuse Bouche formula.
Once you select a finish, you start with base pigment(s) and then mix-ins, which can neutralize certain undertones or add more depth or lightness, depending on what you’re after. The whole process is set-up like a virtual meeting, and Fran adjusted her camera so that I could see her mixing together the various components. There was never any pressure or feeling that I was being rushed to “pick” a shade, which was nice.
After you’re happy with your custom shade, you get to choose the flavor/scent from six (vanilla, violet, fresh citrus, wildberry, coconut, and citrus mango), give your shade a name (even have a symbol stamped on with the name), and select a font. The virtual session then concluded, and Fran went to actually make my custom lipsticks and filmed short clips of her doing so and took some photos, which were emailed to me later on that same day.
I received my order via UPS about a week later, which also included a small, zippered canvas bag and some sample-sized products from Bite’s range (lip balm, primer, liquid lisptick, and a brush) and the information for my shades. There was also a card included for each custom shade that detailed the name, recipe for the custom shade, and so on. Bite stores the information about your custom shade, so you can always repurchase your custom shade (or a friend can).
It was a fun experience, and if you’ve always wanted to go to the Lip Lab but don’t have a location near you, the virtual experience was lovely. I will say that you should go in with an idea of what you want, and if you have products that are “close to” what you’re after, make sure you have those handy so you can share with Bite. It seemed to give Fran a much better idea of what I meant by a “deep red” rather than just saying it!
For me, I wanted to try one “fun” color, hence the green, and something more traditional, hence the red, but I wanted something deeper but vibrant. I’d love to see Bite add shimmer as a mix-in so that you could create more pearly or metallic finishes, too! ‘Cause then I’d have tried to recreate Chanel Dragon.
But also? I really miss the Amuse Bouche formula!
Mellan's Luck
Bite Beauty Mellan’s Luck Amuse Bouche Lipstick ($26.00 for 0.15 oz.) is a muted, medium-dark green with subtle, cool undertones and a cream finish. It had good color coverage in a single layer, which applied fairly evenly. There was a smidgen of product that settled into my deeper lip lines, though it wasn’t noticeable from a normal viewing distance. It wore well for five and a half hours, left a faint stain behind but was hydrating over time.
FURTHER READING: Formula Overview for details on general performance and characteristics (like scent).
Top Dupes
- Fenty Beauty Midnight Wasabi (P, $18.00) is darker, warmer, less glossy (90% similar).
- KVD Beauty Plan 9 (P, $19.00) is more shimmery, darker, warmer (85% similar).
- Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Cosplay (DC, $18.00) is more shimmery, lighter, cooler (85% similar).
- KVD Beauty Plan 9 (DC, $21.00) is more shimmery, cooler (85% similar).
- Guerlain #111 (P, $36.00) is more shimmery, darker (80% similar).
Formula Overview
$26.00/0.15 oz. - $173.33 Per Ounce
Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick ($26.00 for 0.15 oz.) is supposed to have “bold, creamy color” with “extreme moisture, soft texture, and creamy wear.” The majority of the range is very pigmented–typically opaque with one pass–with a few shades being semi-opaque but usually buildable.
The consistency is very lightly creamy to lightly creamy with some shades requiring light-medium pressure and can pull the lip a bit when gliding it across the lips, though the color doesn’t appear ragged and the bullet itself doesn’t feel stiff (while other shades applied without tugging, so check individual shade reviews!) The majority of the shades I’ve tested have been lightly hydrating to non-drying and fairly comfortable to wear for the long-haul. They have a herbal, lemony scent but no discernible taste. They wear longer than average, from four to eight hours, depending on the intensity and propensity of the shade to stain.
Browse all of our Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick swatches.
Mellan's Luck
LELimited Edition. $26.00.
Supervixen
Bite Beauty Supervixen Amuse Bouche Lipstick ($26.00 for 0.15 oz.) is a deep red with cool, blue undertones and a satin finish. It had nearly opaque pigmentation in one pass, which applied evenly and smoothly across my lips without tugging. The texture was lightly creamy but not too heavy or thick, so it was comfortable to wear and didn’t emphasize my lip lines. It was still going strong after six hours of wear and left a stain behind. The formula was moisturizing to wear.
FURTHER READING: Formula Overview for details on general performance and characteristics (like scent).
Top Dupes
- Laura Mercier Rose Rouge (P, $32.00) is lighter (95% similar).
- Givenchy Pourpre Edgy (326) (P, $36.00) is lighter, more muted, warmer (95% similar).
- MAC Nyma Tang (LE, $19.00) is lighter, more muted, warmer (95% similar).
- Sephora Offshore (66) (P, $8.00) is glossier (95% similar).
- Smashbox Harley Quinn (LE, $24.00) is warmer (95% similar).
- ColourPop Jack Skellington (LE, $10.00) is warmer (95% similar).
- MAC E for Effortless (P, $23.00) is darker, warmer, less glossy (90% similar).
- Giorgio Armani Four Hundred (400) (P, $38.00) is lighter, warmer (90% similar).
- MAC Give Me Fever (P, $23.00) is lighter, more muted, warmer (90% similar).
- Sephora Wicked Smart (02) (P, $13.00) is darker, warmer, less glossy (90% similar).
Formula Overview
$26.00/0.15 oz. - $173.33 Per Ounce
Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick ($26.00 for 0.15 oz.) is supposed to have “bold, creamy color” with “extreme moisture, soft texture, and creamy wear.” The majority of the range is very pigmented–typically opaque with one pass–with a few shades being semi-opaque but usually buildable.
The consistency is very lightly creamy to lightly creamy with some shades requiring light-medium pressure and can pull the lip a bit when gliding it across the lips, though the color doesn’t appear ragged and the bullet itself doesn’t feel stiff (while other shades applied without tugging, so check individual shade reviews!) The majority of the shades I’ve tested have been lightly hydrating to non-drying and fairly comfortable to wear for the long-haul. They have a herbal, lemony scent but no discernible taste. They wear longer than average, from four to eight hours, depending on the intensity and propensity of the shade to stain.
Browse all of our Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick swatches.
I believe your descriptions above are mixed up, Christine
Sorry, I wasn’t able to fix this sooner!
That sounds so fun! Maybe that is what I need to do to try and create something similar to my beloved TMI – put make it a bit rosier. I also miss the Amuse Bouche formula, it was so good! I am starting to lose hope that they’ll try to do something similar to it. The red you created is stunning.
Ooooh, I’ve always wanted to do this but haven’t had enough time when I’ve been near a location. Sure, I need more lipstick like I need a hole in my head, but this could be a fun diversion from the quarantimes.
Also, I love both of your colors! I saw Mellan’s luck and I was like “Oooh, that’s a lot like Midnight Wasabi…” then scrolled down and saw that was the top dupe 😉
I may have to go through my lipsticks and choose a shade I like in a formula I’m meh about, because like you, I really love the Amuse Bouche formula.
That is so cool, and I love your colors! My cousin and I got to make custom lipsticks at the SF Lip Lab in late February (right before lockdown!!) and it was so much fun. I made a retro pale peach/coral, and it is definitely my favorite lipstick now.
I had no idea they had one in SF. I’ll have to head down there some time once it reopens.
I wonder if they would match their retired Zivoli red shade (RIP). It’s was my absolute favorite for my skin tone, and I can’t find a dupe anywhere. Also, Mulberry, I miss it so…
One of your pictures doesn’t appear to be supervixen. It is a beautiful shimmery glossy dark red lip. I would like to know what it is? Thanks!
Removed it, so sorry! I didn’t write it down as I didn’t intend to post it. I’m so sorry again!! such an idiot this week!
No, no get in line. I’m the idiot for tipping you off before I got a chance to image search that now deleted, divine lip product.
It wouldn’t have come up with anything, it was like five products together! I’ve just been very frazzled on a personal end for the last month or so, and I had a crisis to attend to and didn’t write down what I used.
I had no idea! I am so sorry, didn’t mean to across as flippant and uncaring with my reply to your comment there. It’s no big deal really. It was just me being silly with my OTT excitement for glittery red lips. I hope things get better at your end. My best to you.
No worries – just my apologies for getting caught in personal stuff and not having it for you!
Wow, this is so cool! And very cool colors you put together too, Christine!
Yay! Thanks, Vikki!
What a cool and very fun experience, Christine! They did an excellent job at formulating these, too. Mellan’s Luck is probably the best performing, most even applying green lipstick I’ve ever seen. And Supervixen is downright glam! It’s a red I would love to have myself. Great job! ??
It was nice to try it! I keep telling them they need a location in AZ! Biltmore or the Quarter feels like they’d be great locations…
Yes to Biltmore! I can still get there easily and without having to pester my son for a ride, which is like pulling teeth! The Quarter wouldn’t be bad, either. (Gosh, I miss The Quarter!) Just one verrry long bus ride though. But we definitely need one here, though!
Gaaaa…this is amazing!
It was very cool to do, even virtually!
This sounds like so much fun. I have well over 250 lipsticks and am still planning on doing a declutter but it is so hard to part with even one of them and yet, many are very similar. I would love to try this. I really love your red and looked at the dupes and understood why. I have three of them. I love be a cool toned red. I do have a couple of LE shades that might be fun to try and re-create. I wish I still had Chanel’s Midnight Garden from back in the 70’s. By far my favorite lipstick shade of all time and should have purchased a back up but who knew back in the 70’s that you needed to hoard those lipsticks, LOL!
A quick question, Christine, do you know if they offer the service in a gift card type purchase? I think it would be cool to gift the experience to friends and definitely my daughter.
I know they do host parties/events as one (both larger and smaller!) – https://www.bitebeauty.com/lip-lab/host-a-party
They also have these: https://bitebeauty.cardfoundry.com/giftcards.php
For a virtual one, I think you can just book on behalf of someone and have their email address as the point of contact (but you could pay). When booking online, it did allow me to “bring a friend” for 2-4 people or “make it a party” for in-store.
Love the red! How do I get this shade? WillI need to book a virtual experience and ask for it in the comments? Also I’m based in the UK not sure if they deliver to here :/
Sorry for asking loads of questions! ?
I’m not sure about delivering to the UK, unfortunately! 🙁 For US, my understanding is you can call and say something along the lines of “my friend / blogger Temptalia made a shade, and I wanted to buy her shade!”
Last time I looked into this they would only do it if you were in the US unfortunately :(. Hopefully they open it up one day, I can’t see why the virtual sessions need to be restricted.
It’s probably the shipping that causes the problem 🙁
The Bite beauty site now ships to the UK – I would have thought it would be the same for the lip lab! I might email them and ask! 🙂
Could be worth checking!
Does anyone know if they would do scent-free versions of their lipsticks?
I had to stop wearing the Luminous Creme formula bc I believe I was developed an irritation to the citrus-mango scent and couldn’t wear the Amuse Bouche formula for any length of time. Other than the original flavored laneige lip sleeping mask, I haven’t been able to wear flavored or scented lip products in a long time.
I’m not sure – it’s definitely added in at the end, and it is a separate ingredient from the color and base!
Excuse me, all this tech is fine, but THE GREEN LIPSTICK IS NAMED AFTER THE GREEN QUEEN’S BELOVED (by all of us ) LABRADOR. OMBFG! Wonderful.
That red is absolutely brilliant on you!
Thank you!
Also, one of the lip swatch photos for Mellan’s Luck looks like a different lip color altogether: a much warmer shimmery glossy green. I’m not sure if that was layered with a gold gloss or something
Sorry, that wasn’t supposed to be uploaded – it is removed now. I played around but didn’t write anything down due to being too frazzled for the last few weeks, so I meant to take down the photos but forgot to do so.
Thank you for sharing this, Christine. I especially appreciate you doing the green. I had considered the Bite Lab for making my niche lipstick color dreams come true, but for the price point needed reassurance they don’t compromise quality on offbeat colors.
My pleasure, Blue! I will say that if you want really intense/vivid non-traditional colors, you may not find it at Bite because their ability to do non-traditional is more limited vs. traditional – like they can mix to get to green (blue and yellow) but don’t have straight-up green to start with.
Great that you had a helpful staff member to help! I went to the NYC Lip Lab to create my shade a few years ago and I had a poor experience. They had a couple shimmers as mix ins then by the way, I added a gold shimmer to mine.
What made the experience poor, Lulle?
The person who worked with me had a really off putting attitude, like she really didn’t want to be there that day? She offered zero insight or advice. Whenever I asked for her opinion or suggestions she just kept saying “it’s up to you”, “it’s your lipstick”. There was another customer at the next station getting great help with a very upbeat staff member and just got out of there super sad that my experience was such a letdown.
Ugh! That is frustrating 🙁 The experience is too expensive to have a bad one!
Thanks for sharing your experience. It sounds really cool! I’d love to do that some time. I really like the shades you chose. Your green is especially impressive.
Wow that’s awesome Prince Noir here I come. I love the Supervixen, is it part of their lineup? Can we purchase it?
It is on file, so it can easily be purchased through one of the Lip Lab locations! It is not part of their official line-up or anything, though. Anyone who makes a custom shade has it added to their files so that they can re-make it if you run out or a family or friend wants to purchase.
What a cool experience! Love that you shared, and Mellan is such a unique green, I don’t have a green, yet! The red looks so beautiful on you, Christine you nailed it! This would be such a fun group experience, after covid of course!
There aren’t that many greens that are readily available, shocking, I’m sure, LOL!
I love that red! This is similar to an experience I had at the Mount Dora Lip Lab located in Mount Dora, FL. A few years ago we were visiting my family at Christmastime and drove over to Mount Dora to walk around downtown and visit the shops. I stopped in at the Lip Lab because I was curious and I am a lipstick addict. I was the only customer in this teeny, tiny store and she spent about 30 minutes with me discussing my desired color, analyzing my skin tone, and talking about the lip products I had in my purse. I ended up purchasing a custom berry color in a lip gloss form and I named it “Cat Lady.” It was fun to watch her mix it in front of me and the ingredients were vegan too, my first vegan makeup purchase.
Happy to hear that you had a good experience at the Lip Lab, Aspasia!! Your shade sounds very pretty!
Your red color is absolutely stunning!
I have been wanting to do this since I first heard about it, and it sounds great!!!! I love the names you picked too- especially Mellan’s Luck ?
That Supervixen shade is stunning and I thought that you would name a lipstick after Mellon!
Supervixen!! ??❤️
I’d buy it!
The closest one to me is Toronto but we have now way to travel there buy transit options at the moment. Plus its location was like an 1+ hour away from the coach station. I was super bumbed about the Amuse Bouche Lipstick formula getting axed so it’s nice to know I could get one of my favourite shades mixed in the future.
It baffled me why it was axed over the matte formula. I keep two of their shade in my purse.
As far as I know, they keep telling people they’re working on it (reformulation of Amuse Bouche), but ahh, it’s been so long.
Mellan’s Luck- what a treasure. That green brings out the green tones in your eyes, absolutely beautiful!
Also I would 100% buy Supervixen. “Hi, is this Fran? Yes, I’d like to buy Christine’s custom lipsticks!” 🙂
I so wish they would ship at international, it seems so much fun.
That red is perfection!
I love this idea so much. When I have a little extra cash lying around I’d totally do this to find that “perfect” nude color I’m always after. Also happy they allow you to choose the scent as I’ve noticed that I really dislike the scent of the amuse bouche. Plain vanilla all the day!
How fun would this be to do ? I love the red, green is a fun color too.
When you mentioned you created a red, I immediately thought of your pursuit of Chanel Dragon ? I remember that it’s been a bit of a white whale of yours for some time, so it’s too bad they didn’t have a shimmer option! I love that you went for both ends of the lipstick color spectrum.
FYI at least the time I went in SF they totally had shimmers that could be mixed in!
That is good to know! Thanks, Ashley!
I did this!
My satin lipstick, mauve-ish neutral/nude called Diva (of course) arrived this week from Toronto’s Lip Lab with a free lip pencil. It was fun to do and I would again, I kicked myself when I realized what I should have aimed for was a dupe to that gorgeous Estee Lauder Naked Truth, which every time I see on you I adore. I’ll try and track down Ramblin’ Rose from MAC.
Ooh! So glad you had a chance to try it and enjoyed it, DVa!! 🙂
Ramblin’ Rose seems to have been discontinued too 🙁