Nars Audacious Lipstick in Bette

After hearing quite a lot of rave reviews on the Nars Audacious Lipstick range I took the plunge and purchased the shade Bette ($44). It is a great dark vampy red, definitely a bold choice and not one I will reach for too often but I don't own anything like it in my collection. The packaging is stunning and I love the magnetic closure, Nars embossing on the bullet, and matte black finish.

Nars Audacious in Bette

I do prefer the Audacious packaging to the regular Nars lipstick packaging as it does seem more worthy of the money spent. As I mentioned before, I heard a lot of good reviews on this range and so naturally I had high hopes. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.

Bette swatched

Bette wasn't as creamy and smooth as I had expected it to be, and therefore it applied rather patchy. As some of you may know I suffer chronically from chapped lips and Bette did not help the situation. It clung to all of my dry patches, so I would recommend exfoliating and moisturising them before applying the rest of your makeup. I also found the formula to be quite uncomfortable and drying on the lips. 

Bette swatched on the lips

It's so unfortunate because I really do love the colour and I was looking forward to trying more neutral shades in the range, which got me thinking, perhaps this is just a fault with the darker shades or maybe I just got a dud. Despite all the negativity I've had surrounding the application of this product, I will still use it and I will look into other colours in order to compare formulas. I'm hoping to get my hands on Raquel soon.

This is definitely a disappointing product for me, which shades have you tried and loved/hated?