

It took trial and error to find what colors work in my favor. The same exact red shade can look completely different on two different people! As someone with a fair (and freckly) skin tone, I’ve learned I can’t just slap on any shade of red and walk out the door. The shade of your skin, for example, olive skin or medium skin, and whether you have warm undertones or cool undertones affects the way a color looks.

Just grabbing a “true red” and calling it a day isn’t the best strategy. Foundation, brows, mascara, and lips – that’s all I need.īut I’m the first to admit, it takes some time to figure out the best shades of red that work for your skin tone. You can just call me a regular old lipstick queen, ha! And if you’ve been following along with my Poor Little It Girl looks for the last 12+ years, then you certainly know it’s my go-to look. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.If there’s one thing I love, it’s a bold red lip. Here, we’ve whittled down the very best: the brightest crimsons, the sexiest scarlets, the vampiest blood-reds, and the smoochiest rubies.Īll products featured on Allure are independently selected by our editors.

We know there’s a perfect power-red lipstick out there for every person, and we’re going to help you skip the trial and error. Too matte, and your mouth looks like a shriveled Craisin. The very best reds are bold, bright, and long-lasting, with a velvety-matte finish that won’t leave prints on your coffee cup. If it’s too slick and glossy, the only thing missing is a leather catsuit and matching flogger. The thing about red lipstick is that there’s a fine line between yassssss and please, no. More recently, after becoming the youngest woman to ever be elected to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted followers the name of her red lipstick, Stila Stay All Day Liquid in Beso. red) was the unofficial lipstick of the 2016 Women’s March. Elizabeth Arden herself handed out red lipsticks to women fighting for voting rights at the 1912 New York City Suffragette March. During World War II, red lipstick became patriotic (Hitler reportedly hated red lipstick) and women proudly wore their Victory Red as a big middle finger to the dictator.įast-forward about 75 years, and MAC Ruby Woo (another F.U. (She was wearing nearly a half-inch of it when she died.) America’s first-ever First Lady Martha Washington made her own red lip salve with a recipe including hogs’ lard, alkanet root, and raisins. But consider these other powerful ladies in red: Queen Victoria believed her red lipstick could work magic and even repel death.

Sure, we can all rattle off the Hollywood bombshells that made the stuff a glamour-girl essential - Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Liz Taylor, to name a few. There's no denying it: Red lipstick is a power move.
