In early 2020, Bite Beauty evolved to a completely vegan brand noting, "As we’ve been innovating with superfoods, we’ve learned we can get amazing results that perform on par with-if not better than-formulas that contain animal byproducts."
Bite Beauty has always been a lip-focused brand, making beautiful, indulgent lipsticks and pigment sticks that catered to every skin tone - it never felt like a trend-based brand, the packaging is sleek, the colours are mindfully blended - everything is wearable.
Which brings us to the title - YLBB = Your Lips But Better (or you may also hear it referred to as My Lips But Better - MLBB). This means, the product matches closely to your natural lip shade, but enhances it. This kind of colour range isn't as easy to locate as you might think - I remember watching a video a few years back talking about how to swatch lipsticks properly.
We often see glosses and lipsticks swatched Instagram-style on the lengths of inner forearms - the only problem is, it's rare for our lips to look that way. Most lips have red/pink/purple undertones and so this video recommended you swatch them on your fingertips, where more blood shows through to give a more accurate representation of what the colour will look like on you.
Even so, making your way through Sephora you won't find a better range of colours that you can play with to work the YLBB look. I have a feeling that Bite Beauty is still in the process of reformulating their famous bullet lipsticks (originally entitled the Amouse Bouche range) with vegan ingredients, but in the meantime, don't look past their Power Move Creamy Matte Lip Crayon (ain't that a mouthful?).
Ironically, after my earlier story, you'll see these swatched along forearms too on Sephora, but keep an eye out for shades like Calvados, Hard Cider and Sugarcane - these kind of nude but not pale shades make the perfect neutral lip and also allow you to play around with overlining in a formula that won't move too easily.
As the name might suggest, these aren't your ordinary lip crayons which feel crumbly or tight on the lips, the formula is boosted with pomegranate oil (yum!) and wild African mango so you won't feel like you need to top this off with a gloss or load up lip balm beneath. Having said that, if you want to give your lips a little extra love, the Agave lip range (I love the Agave+ Nighttime Lip Therapy - it comes with its own tiny spatula!) is the perfect lip prep to get them in tip-top shape before applying.
Now, it wouldn't be fair for me not to comment on the Yaysayer Plumping Gloss, which to me kind of butts heads with the whole good-for-your-lips vibe that Bite has going - this is a cinnamon-packed (and proud of it!) gloss which will likely plump your lips via irritation, so handle with care OR use it on top of other products to avoid the likelihood of irritation from exposure over time. It's not that this alone is going to ruin your lips, but there are way better ways of making your lips look more full and feeling better day in, day out.
I'm keeping my eye out for 2021 releases from Bite, as they've also now entered the face makeup game, so the sky is the limit (oh, and there are a few gift packs of Bite on sale at Sephora Australia, the perfect way to sample a few shades).