Review: Lime Crime Teddy Bear Velvetine

I am obsessed with Melanie Martinez. I own her album, a set of pin badges and have two huge posters hanging in my room. Her music is constantly on whenever I'm in the car and I ache to be as adorable and delicate as her.

I am also totally obsessed with Lime Crime, so imagine how excited I was when I saw Lime Crime were collaborating with her for a limited edition Velvetine, based on her song 'Teddy Bear.'

(Very excited, in case you were struggling to imagine.)

Teddy Bear is described on the Lime Crime website as a lilac brown, inspired by the fur of a vintage teddy bear found in Melanie’s bedroom. Whether this story is true or not doesn't matter, as it simply makes for an adorable behind-the-scenes tale.

I was slightly disappointed to see the packaging for this velvetine was the same as any other. I would have loved to see a special Melanie-themed box design, like the box for the Cry Baby Unicorn lipstick. Not really a criticism, just something I would have really loved to have been included!

Onto the velevtine itself, it's a lot more brown/red than I was expecting. On my skin I really can't pick up any hints of lilac, despite other people's swatches looking incredibly purple. When I tweeted Lime Crime about this, their reply was that the shade adapts to each person's skin tone differently. It's still a gorgeous colour, just not quite what I was expecting.

As usual the lipstick lasts absolutely hours and dries to a beautiful, soft matte finish. It has the signature vanilla scent and looks truly beautiful on lips.

Now for something a little different. On their Instagram and blog, Lime Crime often post swatches of different velvetines mixed together. From these images, I decided to create my own custom shade.

Mixing together Marshmallow, Teddy Bear and NYX Soft Matte Milan, I created my own shade which I have simply named 'Melanie'. I love the gorgeous brown-mauve which has been created, which from swatches actually looks to be very similar to Lime Crime's own Polly, which I have yet to buy for myself.

I have also compared both colours to the Riot velvetine, which I though Teddy Bear was incredibly similar to when I first swatched it.

Just to finish, here's a full lip swatch of the gorgeous teddy bear velvetine! I'm trying to get into the habit of posting more lip swatches after a Twitter poll showed that readers prefer them to arm swatches.

What do you think to the Teddy Bear velvetine?

And do you ever mix your own lipstick shades?