Glut Your Soul on My Accursed Ugliness

Oh HEY, guys. I decided to stop being a jerk and post something to our beauty blog. It’s about bright red lipstick, and it’s just in time for Valentine’s Day.

(Kidding. I wrote that entirely to send Talia off screaming and tearing her hair. Talia once yelled at me for wearing red on the Jewish version of Valentine’s Day, in July. I believe her exact words were: “Oh god, you’re not going to be that girl, are you?”)

Anyway. DO YOU LIKE BRIGHT LIPSTICK? I bet you do. Unless you’re a guy. Guys don’t, in my experience, but I think it’s because they’re afraid of the transfer potential. Or maybe they just don’t like “girls who wear a lot of makeup,” but UGH, I hate those guys.

(Not-so-secret secret: sometimes when I’m procrastinating I just put on more and more and more makeup.)

Here’s how to minimize lipstick transference. And when I say “minimize,” I mean: that lipstick is not coming off. Ever. Even when you want it to. So choose a good color. My favorites will be listed at the end of this post.

1. Get excited: read what Francois Nars has to say about red lipstick.

The most beautiful reds are very pure, very corporeal, very bright: like the colour of blood when it first comes out. … I like the pure reds of old Hollywood or Japan, of off-duty movie stars with no make-up other than their red lips, whose lipsticks were created with pigments that were mostly banned after the second world war. The powdery finish of a real matte-red lipstick … has a deep, velvety quality that is intense and elegant; it’s very cool, very sophisticated. … But not every woman suits red lipstick’s strength of purpose. Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, Amy Winehouse—they look great with red lips, but these are not shy women. Their look is like in a photograph by Helmut Newton (also a red lipstick-lover): loaded with a strong sexual effect. You cannot be a wallflower and wear red lipstick. No, you have to put yourself out there.

2. Make sure your lips are bare and clean — no chapstick base. If your lips are chapped, exfoliate them with a washcloth first.

3. Apply one coat of lipstick. Blot with tissue. Cheap, thin tissues are better, because if you use the nice soft kind, it’ll leave fluffy white stuff on your lips.

4. Apply another coat. Blot again.

5. Use a small blush brush to sweep colorless loose face powder over your lips, like Laura Mercier’s Invisible Loose Setting Powder.

6. Apply one last coat of lipstick, and blot very lightly.

7. This is a trick I think everyone’s heard but bears repeating because it works: put your finger in your mouth, purse your lips around it, and pull it out. That should take off most of the excess lipstick that might have ended up on your teeth.

8. Go forth! Choose an activity — kissing, eating, drinking — and marvel at your lipstick’s staying power.

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My favorite matte red is Nars’s Dragon Girl lip pencil. It is a truly eyeball-blasting red. For a glossy red, I like YSL #18 (but, obviously, the last glossy layer of that will come off on things, so if you’re really looking not to stain your teacup, go with matte). YSL lipstick smells wonderful, too.

I also love bright pink lipstick. I think it’s flattering on almost everyone, and it looks particularly cute with a topknot and glasses and “no other makeup” (HA! by which I mean, all the rest of your usual makeup, but go light on the eyes). I like Nars’s Funny Face and Carthage lipstick, or Makeup For Ever’s Fuschia 16C Aqualip Waterproof Lipliner with some chapstick on top. That stuff really doesn’t budge.

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Next time: liquid eyeliner.