Archived Post

What's one lip color you feel like you can't pull off?


What’s one lip color you feel like you can’t pull off? Share!
Reallllyyy cool-toned, pale pinks and very, very light beiges/peaches. There are very, very few instances where I can wear either and have them look flattering (or at least, somewhat flattering).

Do you have a question idea? Submit yours here.

94 Comments

Comments that do not adhere to our comment policy may be removed. Discussion and debate are highly encouraged but we expect community members to participate respectfully. Please keep discussion on-topic, and if you have general feedback, a product review request, an off-topic question, or need technical support, please contact us!

Please help us streamline the comments' section and be more efficient: double-check the post above for more basic information like pricing, availability, and so on to make sure your question wasn't answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but will typically be removed after errors are fixed (unless a response is needed).

We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when a review will be posted as we can't commit to or guarantee product reviews. We don't want to set expectations and then disappoint readers as even products that are swatched don't always end up being reviewed due to time constraints and changes in priorities! Thank you for understanding!

Comments on this post are closed.
Seana Campbell Avatar

As a pale-skinned, green-eyed blonde, I can’t pull off the very light lipstick colors because it just makes me look so washed out. No pale pink, beige, or nude lips for me. Any bold lip color, however…I’m game!

Priscilla Avatar

I can’t pull off orange (or anything near orange). I have raspberry lips so I can’t use light pinks or nudes (they just don’t cover my natural lip color without concealer, which tends to be drying).

Julia Avatar

I cannot wear pale nudes. I’m around nc25-30 and when I wear pale nudes, my lips look dead… It’s just too light for my skintone and my lips are too pigmented for it.
I know I also can’t pull off crazy Limecrime lip colours(besides the reds).

Sylirael Avatar

I’m similar, actually – although I’m vampirically pale, there’s just no way that I can ever pull off really white-based (opaque) ‘nude’ shades – I mean the really nude ones, like beige and so forth. They just make me look like a genuine, bona fide corpse.

The effect is actually quite interesting (‘editorial’ perhaps?), but certainly not one I want to invest money in cultivating 😉

Brownish dark reds are also not fabulous, now that I think of it….

Debbie Avatar

Purple! Any bluish-purple or wine without a red undertone pulls out all the olive in my skin and I look green and dead! The ever-popular MAC Rebel looks hilarious on me :p

Jenny Avatar

Orange is a hard color to pull off! I bought this orange-red from the Maybelline Vivids line and I hate the color now after looking at it more.

xamyx Avatar

Bright pinks & orange; they just don’t work with my overall aesthetic. I also find they can come off as looking “dated” on someone my age (40), as they were popular in the 80s, and can make one look like they’re struggling to hold on to their youth. For someone younger it can look fashionable, and on-trend, but I just feel more comfortable with the classics.

Ryou Avatar

I don’t like pastel shades on me — If it’s milky, I wouldn’t wear it. I wouldn’t say I can’t pull them off (because I believe you can pull ANYTHING you want to rock), but I just don’t like how they look on me.

Diana Avatar

Any pale pink or barbie pink makes me look awful and my teeth really yellow (at least in my own eyes) Also I can’t pull off any lavender shades or beige nude lips. I’m an NC40 so I find my lip but better shades or shades slightly lighter are my definition of nude.

Lisa Avatar

Hmmm, there are a lot of blue-based pinks that just don’t look right on me.
And certain corals pull very pink on me, and end up looking basically magenta (I’m looking at you, Maybelline Shocking Coral).
Oranges look great on me, though.

Diane Avatar

I’m a super pale, green-eyed blonde and nudes, beiges or pale pinks never work on me, it makes half of my face disappear. I never understand how all the beauty magazines always advise these colors on a pale skin, as if pigmentation was bad for us

StrangeOne Avatar

The whitish nudes are definitely a no go. I just look like I had a glass of milk and forgot to wipe my lips.

I can wear oranges and fuchsias but have a lot of difficulty with reds. I think that’s mainly because I look like my dad in drag with red lip colour but I also can never can get a flattering shade. I recently found that wet n’ wild cherry frost looked better on me than all expensive brands I bought.

zainab Avatar

Anything dark or vampy. If I want to look five years older, and at least five pounds heavier, a vampy lip’s the look for me.

Very, very pale colours also tend to look odd on me, I think because they remove the contrast between my lips and skin tone and make me look a bit sick. I’m not a fan of ‘concealer lips’ generally so it’s not much of a loss.

Anything between those extremes (even if the colour itself is weird or unconventional) looks fine, or, at least, I’m game to wear it.

grlnxdor Avatar

I can’t wear pale cool toned pinks or beiges. I also cannot wear frosted shades because they make me look like I never updated my look from back in the ’70-’80’s. I have to also add dark, vampy shades. They make me look harsh.

Kathrina Avatar

Blue-based pale pinks look horrible on me, too. I tried endless ways to make MAC’s Saint Germain work for me and found that I can only use it for layering over a darker, warmer lipstick or liner.

Sara Avatar

Definitely nudes like you said, I’m too pale already so I can’t do light pink or beige. I also don’t look good in brown tones. One color that I’ve become more used to is fuscia/purple lately! Its on trend and it’s not as scary as I once thought! Maybe I’ll even pick up a radiant orchid shade this year.

Sasha Avatar

As far as personal comfort I’m still not comfortable wearing bright fuschias and pinks like Givenchy Rose Dressing.

As far as being really unflattering, I agree with pale beiges and peaches. I see them look really lovely on people with medium to deep skintones but I’m NC15 and they wash me out like crazy. Some of my first lipsticks were Mac Shy Girl with Nars Turkish Delight lipgloss and Mac Coral Bliss; now I want to get rid of them because I’m used to bolder colors and see how terribly they wash me out.

Veronica Avatar

Really cool toned pinks as well… Purples, and any cool tone color in general.

I’m a NC15 redhead with very warm skintones, so anything cool looks just bad on me. (I can pull off cool toned eye shadows, just not lip colors and blush).

Danielle Avatar

I was originally going to say purpley shades like Revlon Berry Haute or MAC Up the Amp, but I actually think it’s those really pale, beige-nude shades. I am very fair (NARS Sheer Glow in Siberia), so incredibly pale nudes make me look dead – I definitely need some color on my face!

Alison Avatar

Same as you, Temptalia! I wouldn’t even bother trying pale, cool toned/white based pinks (most light pinks, actually…) or really flat pale beige! I do love nudes, reds, corals, berries and plums, so I really can do a lot of different colors so long as I choose one that suits me. I also don’t particularly like neon pink on me, but I think that’s more personal taste.

Treefinger Avatar

I think cool-toned pale pinks only look good on really cool-toned dark-skinned women… otherwise people look a little too “Jersey shore” for my tastes. However, I’ll wear the ultra-pale nudes as an almost translucently pale person 😀 I think they can look alright if paired with a really, really bold eye look. Most are actually darker than my skin by just a little bit anyway.

Neons scare me though…

Melody Avatar

Light pale nudes/frosty nudes and dark muddy browns. I’m an nw/nc 25-30 and they look horrible in winter and with summer tans. Cool reds look better on me in the summer with a tan, I prefer. Brash oranges look awful! Softer oranges and corals are fantastic.

fancie Avatar

Definitely anything pale. Makes my lips look ashy and powdery. Orange is also another hard color for me to pull off. I can do corals and reddish orange shades but straight up orange is a bit of a struggle for me. I’m still trying to figure out how to pull off MAC Ablaze lol

Laura Avatar

I can’t pull off lilacs, orchids, or pinks with blue undertones. My skin is pale and yellow toned and I have light brown-reddish hair, so those colors look really off. Also because I’m so pale, nude tone lipsticks and very brown lipsticks make me look sickly.

I lean toward pinks with a yellow undertone, rosy and berry hues, warm peachy tones, and I even love orange lipsticks. My “nudes” still tend to have some color to them (my lips have almost no pigment, so I guess if I wanted to go nude I could just wear lipbalm lol).

Lauren Avatar

I have a medium skin tone that leans warm. I can’t pull of very light pinks (particularly cool, blue-based light pinks) or very light nudes. I can wear most colors, but nothing lighter than my medium skin tone. My preference is towards brownish reds, berries, rose-toned nudes, and brown-toned nudes. I can do deep, bright pinks, but I feel silly in them.

Lee Avatar

Oranges and most orange toned lipsticks, even corals. It makes me sad because the corals and peachy shades always look so pretty on Christine but never work for me.

Codename Duchess Avatar

Pale shades of any kind. I have dark hair and fair skin, so any shade that’s lighter than my natural lip shade (which is already pretty light) completely washes me out. Nudes in general are tricky too. It’s hard to find one that doesn’t look like badly matched concealer on me. Also nothing too orange!

Jane Avatar

Super-dark, vampy colors are terrible on me. They make the rest of my face look ashen and horrible even if I try to counteract it with brighter makeup.

On the other end of the spectrum, I can’t wear pale nudes. I look sick or dead if my lips aren’t at least slightly darker than my face.

I’ll give anything else a whirl, though… neon pink? red? sure… coral, berry, rose, plum, you name it, I wear them all fairly regularly

Michelle Avatar

The one lip color I can never wear with any success is RED !! I love reds, but look absolutely horrid in every shade I’ve tried (tooooo many !)…Would love to find that perfect red shade although I have been quite happy with my M.A.C. bright shades of purples & pinks since 1989 ! I can’t wear the pale colors in ANY shade…sigh LOL !

Samantha Avatar

Orange-toned lip colors look unfortunate on me. I do not like orange, however, so I am not certain which came first, my distain for the color in general, or the shade on my lips. Either way, being a cool, fair-skinned girl, it would refuse to work on me.

Molly Avatar

I find that most lip colors look good on me. I have brown hair and my skin is on the lighter side but I naturally have a small amount of color to it. Nudes don’t look bad on me, but I just prefer color because it makes me feel girly. 🙂 The only color I’d say I honestly don’t like on me is very, very, VERY cool toned pinks because my complexion is warm and instead of balancing things out, it just washes me out and looks very unnatural.

Xero Avatar

Blue-based colors look awful on me. Most cool-toned colors look bad on me. I need a healthy dose of yellow or orange in my lipsticks for them to be flattering (I LOVE corals, peaches and orange-reds!). Berries don’t necessarily look bad on me but they age me SO much, same goes with neutral/cool reds–especially if they’re dark. I have very childlike features so I end up looking like a little girl who got into her mother’s makeup. =/ One exception is Rimmel 107, which I actually like on me. Lately I’ve been trying to get into Radiant Orchid type purples (even before it was the color of the year!) and it’s not bad but it takes some getting used to.

Melio Avatar

Any kind of Orange, Orange-Red, or even Coral. I have really pale skin-NC 15, so if I wear any lipstick with orange in it, it makes my teeth look yellow (even though I whiten my teeth!). It’s a shame because I love the look of Lady Danger by MAC.

monibackincalif Avatar

*****GASP*****Mac Heroine. I just does NOT look correct on me. I do, however, enjoy it on others.

That and Candy Yum Yum….. makes my NC40/C5 skin-tone look yellow’ish….

JR Avatar

Hot pink, or any other pink/fuschia color and I look hideous in traditional red. I may be the only person on here who loves nude lips as a go-to for everyday. 🙂

erin Avatar

Orange, corals, orangey-reds. I love they way the nude colors look on models, but if I buy the same shade, they never look the same!! (I think they must be mixing the color with something else. They gotta’ be!)

Amy Avatar

I’m fair, neutral/warm and low contrast; anything too dark and anything with too much blue in it – fuchsia, cool reds – looks awful on me (in clothes as well as lipstick). Oddly, I can’t wear beige-y nudes either.

Jan Avatar

Where to start:

Any non-orange lipstick with an underlying orange tint, black, pale nudes, light pinks, overly strong blue-based pinks, bright pinks, peach tones, many corals, light-to-medium toned beiges, and bright reds.

We try to approve comments within 24 hours (and reply to them within 72 hours) but can sometimes get behind and appreciate your patience! 🙂 If you have general feedback, product review requests, off-topic questions, or need technical support, please contact us directly. Thank you for your patience!