Today’s post is a collaboration with my amazing, incredibly talented friend Kathryn, who I’m sure you know already as Simply Swatched on Instagram or her website. We both love arm swatches, interesting colors, niche brands, and overanalyzing why the exact same shade can look completely different depending on someone’s undertone.
When I realized we had both independently bought the new Risky Blur-Rush Sticks, I reached out to see if she wanted to do a joint post reviewing everything we have from the brand, and luckily she said yes! We thought it would be fun to compare notes and turn the posts into a little undertone experiment. Make sure to check out her review for her thoughts on the products and to see how the shades look on her very fair, muted, neutral skin. Her swatches are also much better labeled than mine, and she does videos! Let us know if you’d like to see us do more comparisons like this – we love to buy too much makeup and write reviews!
Risky makes exactly the kinds of colors I’m always trying to find: muted mauves, grungy purples, genuinely cool browns, and purple blushes that allegedly stay purple. I bought all 14 products in this post myself because I needed to know what they’d all look like on me and have been testing them for the past few weeks.
In this post, all links are affiliate links (thank you for your support!), but all opinions are my own. Swatches are under a ring light to show true to color (photo #1) and then standard lighting to show the formula a little better (#2) for all the products.
Overall, Risky is more expensive than most American drugstore makeup, but still less expensive than most prestige makeup. YesStyle is also almost always running a sale and lets you stack codes too, which is one of the reasons I grabbed so many glosses. Most of the packaging is fun, functional, and feels more expensive than it is (except for the blush sticks, which are just…sticks).
Risky Be Bold Lip Glosses in Hissy Fit, Guilty, Sicko, Oddy, and Mumbly – These glosses are so good, and I’m honestly just very happy I own all five. These remind me of the liquid lip balm formulas everyone was obsessed with a few years ago. I’m still personally a huge fan of that type of formula, and these are such a good version of it. They feel buttery and smooth, make my lips look noticeably better, and give me a pretty shine without feeling sticky. They’re extremely comfortable and moisturizing, with just a slight cooling tingle. I also haven’t noticed any scent or taste that bothered me.
They last better than I expect a gloss to last. The color and visible shine eventually do wear away, but the nourishing feeling sticks around. I tested one while working on this review, washed my face, took a shower, and could still feel some of it on my lips afterward. I wouldn’t use one of these as an overnight treatment, but as a shiny daytime liquid lip balm, I am extremely impressed.
Hissy Fit is an perfect everyday, my-lips-but-better mauvy pink. It’s the most everyday shade of the five, but it still feels special because it actually stays mauve instead of drifting into peach or orange. Guilty is deeper and grungier, with a beautiful desaturated mauve/purple/brown tone. These are the two I’ve been wearing most often.
Sicko is much sheerer and gives me a translucent wash of desaturated gray-purple. It’s beautiful by itself, but I also love it for cooling down another lip color. Oddy is the sheer grape color I keep hoping to get from Clinique Black Honey type products, and it 100% delivers.
Mumbly is a cool toned brown gloss that stays cool instead of turning Cheeto or orange. This was the first shade I put on when these arrived because I don’t think I had ever tried a brown gloss that actually stayed this color on me. I don’t think everyone needs all five, but they’re each special, none of them go orange on me, and I would honestly buy all of them again.
Risky Blur-Rush Sticks in Tinut, Heartish, Mauvement, and Purpler – These have become some of the cream blushes I reach for most, and I honestly haven’t really touched my others since I got them. They’re so easy to throw on and blend, and they have a really pretty, skin like finish. They also layer really well so I can use them together to make a custom shade.
The formula is a little sheer and buildable, although the pigmentation varies by shade. Mauvement is softer and sheerer, while Purpler has noticeably more payoff. They’re easy to control if you’re paler than I am, but they also build up without much effort. My only complaint is that all four tubes look identical from the outside and the part of the packaging that matches the shade is inside, which isn’t particularly helpful when I’m trying to grab the right one.
Tinut is an orangey nude-beige that I bought specifically because I wanted to know whether it would be olive-friendly. On me, it has too much of that strange orange tone I’m always trying to avoid. It isn’t the worst Cheeto situation I’ve ever seen, but it’s the only one of the four I wouldn’t recommend. Heartish is the perfect brightening cool toned pink. It gives me a fresh springy or summery look without turning peach.
Mauvement is my perfect (really, PERFECT) cool, grungy, slightly gray and desaturated mauve. Purpler is a genuinely cool purple blush that stays purple instead of turning pink. It’s deeper and more pigmented than Mauvement, and this kind of purple looks so good against olive skin.
Risky Be Bold Lip Blushed in Moly, Thistle, and Peacock – Blurred K-beauty liquid lips are one of my favorite makeup categories, and these are no exception. The formula is super thin, smooth, and easy to wear. It gives me the soft, diffused matte effect I want without feeling dry or heavy. They’re a little sheerer than some similar formulas, which I actually really appreciate. I would rather gradually build a blurred lip than start with an extremely pigmented formula and end up with an AHHHH PIGMENT situation. They aren’t 20 hour bulletproof liquid lips, but they’re comfortable, easy to reapply, and leave behind a little bit of a stain as they fade.
Moly initially looks like a warm coral pink but in some lighting it does go Cheeto. It also has a little visible sparkle, which I don’t mind, but I also don’t understand. I will still wear it because sometimes I do want to wear orange on purpose. But if you’re buying Moly because it looks pink and you’re also a green friend, this is not for you.
Thistle is yet another cool toned mauve. It stays mauve, doesn’t go orange, and gives me exactly the easy blurred color I’m almost always looking for. Like the other mauves, Risky did a fantastic job. Peacock is a deep berry purple that actually stays purple instead of turning pink. Just like the blush, I love this kind of purple on my olive skin.
Risky Pigment Eyeshadow Palette in Harsh – This palette has eight eyeshadows, focused mainly on burgundy, pink, purple, and red tones. I find these colors surprisingly easy to use for everyday looks, especially because red plus green equals brown. These shades often look more better on me than a warm brown palettes that just ends up looking orange.
Compared with most of my other K-beauty eyeshadows, these are more pigmented, especially the deeper shades. The darker shades all have strong payoff, while the lighter shades are softer and useful for blending. The formula is consistently good, easy to blend, and flexible enough to apply with either my fingers or a brush. I don’t get much fallout or noticeable creasing, and it’s the kind of palette I can grab without worrying that the formula is going to cascade into a bunch of mistake fixing all morning. The shimmers are smooth and pretty rather than extremely intense or sparkly, but that’s been great for every day.
Risky Pigment Eyeshadow Palette in Cosmic Love – Cosmic Love is essentially a palette of eight sheer, sparkly toppers. There are two really pretty browns and then a bunch of fun colors. The base colors are fairly translucent, so I prefer wearing them over another shadow – I showed them all over black in the swatches so you can see how they transform over a darker base. I also recommend using a tackier glitter primer or glitter base to help with longevity especially if you’re wearing these alone.
These shades give you a really pretty, ethereal look, but with more sparkle than I usually get from this type of palette. If that’s what you want, I think this is a great option. For me, though, if I’m adding sparkle, I want SPARKLE. I’d rather put the money toward one or two really special shades from Half Magic, Hourglass, or Victoria Beckham.
What should I test next? As always, all reviews/opinions are completely my own and unsponsored.
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