Red Lip Moment

Red lips are having a major moment right now. I thought it was just me, but a few days ago, Vogue covered Kendall Jenner and Olivia Palermo, among others pairing bright red lips with winter whites for the holiday season. That, and just today, MAC Cosmetics announced the release of the 'Red, Red, Red' collection which includes four new, limited-edition, red shades to add to their repertoire of already perfect scarlet shades.

Red lips are never not having a moment - it doesn't get more classic or iconic than a red lip. It can be the mark a woman from the most daring to the most minimalistic. I grew up seeing red lipstick after red lipstick, and nothing but red lipstick in my mother's makeup drawer. I've owned a few myself and love them, but never thought they suited my personality like they do my mother's. My mom is serious and reserved and reminds me of Maria Felix. I'm rarely serious and hardly reserved and most of the time, I feel like I lack the grace to pull off bold red lips.

But over the past three weeks I've seen an onslaught of red lips and I'm really loving it. It all started over Thanksgiving, when I spotted the O Magazine December issue at my grocery store checkout line and actually squealed. This red and the combination of blue and orange undertones in it just captivated me.



And like any good beauty addict, I stalked tracked down Oprah's makeup artist (@Derrick4mkup), browsed his Instagram feed and begged him to tell me who this perfect red lip is by. On a post talking about the look, he wrote out a detailed description on how he achieved it:

"...now that lip that everyone has been asking about was achieved by using 3 diff red pencils, after applying lip balm. I used a warm brown red to trace along the lip line, a blue red pencil to fill in the lip, and an orange red to fill in the center of the lip. After blending all three colors with a lip brush, I then used a matte red gloss to give the lip richness."

While this was super helpful and actually useful (I created the red lip below using the same process), Derrick - these descriptions are too vague! I'd love to know the exact products used. I'm still waiting on response from him and something tells me I'll be waiting a while. Either way, I did my best to recreate the look.

For my red lip, which I wore this past weekend to my agency's holiday party - masquerade themed - I started with a tiny bit of foundation on the lips and primed with my holy-grail Too Faced Lip Insurance. I traced a line around my lips using Milani's Easyliner Mechanical Lip Pencil in Sugar Plum (great drug-store buy at just under $5). I then applied NYX's Matte Lipstick in Pure Red, which is actually more orange-red than red-red, to the center of my bottom lip and finished by filling in my lips with Ruby Woo (from my 2014 Holiday Gift Guide), which is blue-based red. Ruby Woo is a perfect matte red and almost looks like velvet when applied.





Because I struggle with redness and because Ruby Woo has blue undertones, it's difficult for me to wear it on its own. I tend to prefer orange, neon or crimson shades of red for this very reason. But I love Ruby Woo, and the hint of orange in NYX's Pure Red helped to brighten, as well as warm up my complexion. To really combat any redness that might have been emphasized by the blue tones in the lip color, I went pretty heavy on the Benefit LemonAid under my eyes, around my lips and on my forehead.

This was on a casual Tuesday evening, my first attempt at creating this look, my practice run for the holiday party.

 


Even at 28, I know I'm not nearly as graceful or mature as I should be to properly wear red. But over the winter and well into the spring, I know I'll be on the hunt for every great red I can get my hands on, including the colors from that 'Red, Red Red' collection. And I'll do my absolute best to do them grown-up, lady-like justice.