Who's afraid of a bright red lip?

This post is a long time coming. (I've been having a procrastination-infused fall and winter, it seems.) So even though we're past the holiday season when red lips are all the rage, you'll hopefully still indulge me as I write up a quick review of the Bite Beauty Matte Creme Lip Crayons that I had the pleasure of trying out over the last several months.

The shades came courtesy of an Influenster VoxBox, and I'll admit I was pretty excited to try something from the Bite brand. Of course, when I saw that the crayons were matte it gave me pause because non-glossy lips don't tend to be my thing. In my head, matte = dry = chapped, and I have a hard enough time keeping things moisturized in the winter as it is.

As is evidenced by the picture, I was sent three shades to try -- a nude shade called Cava (which is an online exclusive), a mauve shade called Glace, and a classic deep red called Red Velvet. I wound up gifting the first two to a friend (the nude shade looked ghostly on my fair skin and the mauve shade just didn't compliment my coloring), but I've now worn the red shade a handful of times.

Overall, I've been more impressed than I expected to be. First of all, I like that these are twist up, so there's no messy sharpening. More importantly, the crayons are not nearly as drying or chalky as I thought. I'm not totally sure I'd go as far as to say they're moisturizing -- the brand claims to have infused naturally derived orange peel wax into the ingredients to "seal in moisture" -- but I haven't noticed that they make my lips feel any more dry than a normal lipstick would.

Of course, that sweet little point that you see in the picture above disappears pretty rapidly, so you'll still need a lip liner with some of the bolder or darker shades. And just like the Nars packaging that feels silky smooth at first, but gets dirty at the drop of the hat, the sort of rubber-like material that these are made of also starts to look pretty grubby after a few days floating around at the bottom of your bag.

If you want to try them out, these Bite Beauty crayons sell for $24 a piece on Sephora.com and come in 19 different shades -- certainly enough variety for most folks to find something they like. For me, I probably wouldn't venture out and buy more of them with my own cash, if only because I prefer a satin finish instead, but I'll be curious to know what you think if you give it a shot. Share your thoughts in the comments below, or let me know which lipstick brand is your fave.