When shopping by yourself for the perfect shade of red, there are two things to consider: what natural shape your lips are, and what your undertones are in your skin.
LIP SHAPES
BEWARE: If you have thinner lips you should stay within the lighter shades of red or the pinker-reds so your lips stay full! If you choose to use the deeper dark tones, you are taking the light away from the lips and they will appear smaller, even with lipgloss. If you have medium to fuller lips, be aware that the color you choose can make a huge impact on your overall look.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT SHADE
There are blue-red, orange-red and deep-red shades of color to choose from, (which means the color undertone the red has). And don’t forget the lipliner – the most important part of the lip process is lining to keep the color from bleeding through, especially reds. Choose a shade comparable to the lipstick, always go a shade deeper if you have to.
Fair/Light: You have a pink/fair skintone (you burn easily) – go for the blue-red shades or a cherry red.
Light/Medium: If you can tan easily but still burn then you most likely have more beige to yellow undertones, so try the orange or brown red tones.
Medium/Dark: Your skin has a natural tan color maybe with golden to honey undertones and you darken easily when exposed to the sun. You can get away with fire engine red and deeper red based tones.
Dark: You are deep skin toned, with mocha undertones, and should opt for deep red tones as well.
Make sure your lips aren’t chapped or have any dead skin on them. If you need to, use a clean toothbrush to exfoliate the lips gently. Keep the rest of your makeup lighter on your face so your other features will not fight against your lips when wearing your new unstoppable color!
With the sharpened lip liner, begin to line the natural line of your lips starting at the cupid’s bow and working your way down to the corners. Then start again at the base of your lip line and work your way up and into your corner of your mouth. With your fingers, blend the lipliner into your lips gently to soften the line. Apply lipstick evenly on the top and bottom lips, either with lipstick or a loaded-up lipbrush. Don’t forget the corners!
Take a clean tissue and blot lipstick one time as if to kiss the tissue. Apply a light dusting of translucent loose powder over lips, blotting away excess. Repeat steps 1 and 2, then lightly press lips together to make sure you have even coverage. Step away from the mirror and look at your face overall. If your lips have any unevenness in lines, use the lip liner softly to fix any mistakes. If you need to wipe anything away, a quick blending of concealer and then setting it with powder should fix any mistakes. You now have kissable, traffic-stopping lips!
Favorite Red lip colors:
- MAC Cosmetics Viva Glam I (matte brownish blue-red) Fair/Light
- MAC Cosmetics Fresh Moroccan (Brick red with gold pearl) Light/Medium/Dark
- MAC Cosmetics Lady Bug (yellow tomato red with w/ sheen) Light/Medium
- MAC Spice it Up! (muted brown berry w/ sheen) Light/Medium/Dark
- Bloom Cranberry (Light pink rose sheer matte) Fair/Light
Favorite Lip Liners:
- Rimmel London 1000 Kisses in Coffee Bean (deep brown red)
- Rimmel London 1000 Kisses in Red Dynamite (bright blue-red)
Lip Glosses:
- Clinique Superbalm Lipgloss in Raspberry (very versatile since it’s a sheer tone) all tones
- MAC Cosmetics Lip Glass in Russian Red (vivid intense bluish-red) all tones
