How To Wear Red Lipstick

A Makeup Guide to Choosing the Right Lip Color For Your Face

Aug 10, 2008 Gill Hart

Finding the right red lipstick for your skintone, the shape of your lips, and your other facial features requires know-how. Wear the wrong shade and you look washed-out.

The lure of luscious red lips is something men find very hard to resist. Over the years we have learnt to associate red lipstick with sex appeal and glamour.

Red lipstick will always be a beauty staple — always in fashion, whatever the season. However, many women have a tendency to avoid this color, particularly as they mature in years, as it can be aging. If wrongly applied, instead of looking glamorous, it can make you look tarty or washed-out.

Choosing Red Lipstick for your Skin Tone

Just as in choosing red outfits for your wardrobe, you should give selecting red lip color the same type of consideration. Before you scream, “Yes, but I can’t wear red,” there is in fact, such a variation in red tones and hues that everybody can wear a red lipstick, it is simply a case of finding one that flatters your skin tone. From blue-based violets, orange-based, pink-based to richer browns and tawny golds, choose the right shade and in can liven up your face, making it come alive, and your eyes sparkle.

• Pale skinned women need to go for a red with a blue or brown-undertone, which looks striking against fair skin. Yahoo's online beauty magazine, Shine, recommends trying a color like Clinque in Angel Red – a bluish red, or Dior Replenishing Lip Color in Action Red – a brownish red, in their feature, “The Best Shade of Red Lipstick,” 8 August 2008. Using these as color suggestions as a guideline, you can look for similar shades in your favorite brand.
• Medium-to-dark skins fare well with deeper reds, with brown or tawny bases. This more intense color is rich against your skin tone. Shine suggests a a color similar to the rich red Vincent Longo Lipstain Lipstick in Belle Etoile for a little luster. Kat Von D's Painted Love Lipstick in Underage Red is for a bolder and more defiant look. Both lipsticks are available at Sephora online.
• Dark brown skins look dramatic with pinkish reads, strong fuchsias or orange-based poppy reds.

Choosing Red Lipstick to Suit Your Face

In addition to skin tone, take into account your tooth coloring and the shape of your lips. If you suffer from tooth discoloration, then go for a shade with blue undertones as orangey, yellowy-bases will only serve to make your teeth look more stained. Bear in mind that a dark red lipstick will make your lips appear smaller, just as a dark-colored outfit serves to make us appear slimmer. If have narrow thin lips, then go for a brighter or more neutral tone.

How to Wear Red Lipstick

When applying lip makeup go for a lip liner of the same shade or very slightly paler – not darker. Avoid overly matte lipsticks, and those that are very sheer, if you want a slight sheen and a long-lasting look. The more pigment in a lipstick the less often it needs to be reapplied Exfoliating your lips with a toothbrush, before putting-on lipstick, also helps. Clinque cosmetics new range of High Impact lip colors are "high on color, long on comfort," according to the brand's website.

Keep Your Wardrobe Simple

Keep the rest of your wardrobe and beauty regime simple, it you don’t want to be seen as over-the-top. Unless it is for a really special occasion, keep the rest of your outfit unfussy or casual, like a simple little black dress or white T-shirt/blouse and jeans or chic black or charcoal gray pants. This is one beauty-look you should avoid for a wedding as it is not demure or romantic enough. Victoria Beckham's simple, lacy white Versace dress, at the 2008 Metropolitan Costume Ball was toughened up with sex appeal by adding a touch of striking red lip color.

Keep Other Beauty Products Subtle

Make sure you keep the rest of your beauty regime subtle, with a neutral blusher and a shimmery, light eye shadow, ideally one-color. Red lipstick has enough attitude on its own. Think sex goddess, think femme fatale – glamorous, yes; subtle, most definately not!

The copyright of the article How To Wear Red Lipstick in Beauty is owned by Gill Hart. Permission to republish How To Wear Red Lipstick in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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