I'm surprised so many people are having patchiness issues. The only quirk I had was that it would transfer right off the inner lip line on the lower lip if I just barely touched my lips together right after applying. If I immediately went to go fill that back in, then yeah, it'd get patchy. If I just applied it and let my mouth hang open for ~15 seconds or a little more (as long as it took to put it on the upper lip plus maybe a few seconds more), it'd set up and then suddenly no transfer and if I wanted a second coat, it wouldn't smear. If it sets up on the lips, then afterwards you can blot it down for a really different looking stain, too - but if you blot too soon, it just comes right off all at once and doesn't leave a stain at all, which again could wind up patchy. I think if you had balm on your lips first, all of these issues could be magnified.
'Still not as bad as Potent Fig, which takes more work than any other dark lippie I own, including Black Knight.
If you've got full lips, I think you could apply it from the tube, rather than messing with a lip brush, but the way to do it would be to dab it in dots working from the center out on either side, let that set, then do a second layer if needed - that way you won't get a patchy smear or uneven effect from doing one swipe for the lower part of the lip, then a second overlapping on the upper part of the same lip. Vampy lips - they're high maintenance, but YR is actually very user friendly compared to some of the darks I've got.
