Review: Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipstick ‘Madison’

I only have four Anastasia Beverly Hills liquid lipsticks – primarily because of the $20 price tag. There are so many liquid lipsticks today on the market for far cheaper that it’s just easier to by 3-4 ColourPop shades for the same price as a MAC lippe. However, with the cheaper price, you usually give a little on quality and vice versa. I would expect extended wear time, less drying on the lips, boosted pigmentation from ‘higher-end’ liquid lipsticks.
With the stage being set, I like Anastasia Beverly Hills liquid lipsticks, but I don’t love them. For $20, I feel I should be getting quality akin to Kat Von D or Stila (some like ‘Amore’, not all Stila shades are poppin’). But the ABH formula falls flat for me. It feels like a traditional matte liquid lipstick to me, it isn’t transfer proof, and all four of the ones I have feather with wear. Not a great way to start off, I know, but I want you to know my thoughts going into trying out ‘Madison’.

I felt ‘Madison’ was better on application than it’s sister ‘Vintage’, but it still required two coats to build up the pigmentation I was looking for. And trying to apply two coats of liquid lipstick is a science believe me, apply too soon and it just smears product everywhere, apply too late and it gets all goopy. I *think* for the purpose of this lip swatch, I got the timing about right and was able to get quality pigmentation on the first go. But the additional coat dried out my lips in record time – less than 30 minutes – and I was itching to take it off.

Unless we get a reformulation announcement, I will probably skip out on purchasing anymore of their liquid lipsticks, which is ok by me since I can use that $$ to fund my new Glow Kit obsession! For any of you beauties looking to try a similar shade, you will pretty much have the same issues with ColourPop Cosmetics ‘Lychee’, but you will only have to fork up $6 for a pop of color. You can see in the picture below the similarities to ‘Madison’.

I wish I could be more complementary of this shade, but ABH has so much going for them that I will continue to support all their other products and I’ll come back around in a year or so to see if any upgrades have been made to their formula.