BlackCraft Cult
A friend messaged me late one night... with images of death's head moths and coffin shapes? Be still my teenage heart, what is this? A shadow palette and set of four lipsticks by BlackCraft Cult showed up on Hot Topic's shelves. Black Craft Cult, "spawned out of a Southern California attic in the summer of 2012" by duo Somers and Bobby Schubenski with "a singular idea to motivate people in a positive light outside of the realms of organized religion". With an ethos to "celebrate self-empowerment, self-expression, and all aspects of life that encourage personal freedom". Making badass t-shirts (my girlfriend wears one nearly everyday) and collaborating with others they've spread their message far with lines of clothing to coffee, even wicked furniture there's now makeup added to the list. With a price my teenage self would have also flipped for I had to try it.
For this Night Fiend collection is comprised of an eyeshadow palette in the shape of a Death's Head Moth, with 12 (too cute) coffin shaped eyeshadow pans and a brush, plus a coffin shaped box containing four lippies: two lip glosses and two liquid matte lipsticks. They both boast marks of cruelty free and vegan, and have mirrors. The lipsticks come resting in a removable plastic tray so you can pop them out, underneath revealing the same mothy pattern paper as around the lipsticks and use the box to keep even more goodies.
The lip glosses are highly pigmented, Death Stare is red, Cult Classic a coraly pink, they go on pretty well. The liquid mattes are Sinful, a dark purple and Catacombs a black, that do not go on the most covering, it took me few coats and there still was not complete full coverage but they do dry to nice matte finishes making them not the worst. All four have a nice peppermint scent.
In the eyeshadow palette there are 12 shades including matte and shiny/glitter plus an application brush. Do you see how adorable these little coffin shaped pans are? They have a slightly waxy feel to them, and apply a little thin, most taking multiple strokes to make the skin swatch, they can be buildable it just takes a little bit more time, unless you're going for a lighter look. I really liked the shade Memento Mori using it alone and laying it with Nightshade to darken it.
Since the shadows do apply a lil light but can be buildable, it took me a while to create this look. I used Eerie under my brow bone, Amulet and Marionette on the lid and layers of Memento Mori and Nightshade at the crease blending up and out with the lighter color. Here it is first with the lip gloss Cult Classic, which I really like and find very flattering.
However to try out more shades, and play a bit with the concept of the moon phases motif also featured in the palette I used all the other colors to try to create a night scene on half my face... Tarot and Moon Phases stood with Nightshade applying pretty well while the rest took many strokes, dips in the pans, time and still was not able to achieve what I was trying to do so I added a bit of highlights from my Anastasia Beverly Hills' Moonchild Glow Kit. I then tried to do an ombre with the black and purple lippies, but they are so thin, this did not work so I ended up layering them, or trying to, to get a full coverage. After a few coats carefully applied, trying not to remove product with new swipes, the coverage was not 100% but they did dry to a nice matte eggshell finish and felt they were covered enough it looked nice.
Long as you're not trying to pull off anything too ambitious the shadows and lippies are usable. They're at a price making them great for younger or newer adventurers into macabre makeup which they'd be great for. These sets do slay with their packaging, which is no surprise from BlackCraft who put out amazing graphics, plus I love the coffin box and it's very usable sized mirror for keeping other goodies plus the lip glosses are pretty great. They are very affordable... and since these are from/at Hot Topic who often likes to do different promotions they can be even further discounted. For the packaging alone they win, budget friendly and would make great gifts, especially for baby bats, maybe a goth starter kit :p <3
Thank you for taking a look, reading and playing with these BlackCraft Night Fiend sets with me. To find your own call upon your local Hot Topic. I highly recommend checking out more of BlackCraft Cult at www.blackcraftcult.com and in their words "create your own future". <3
