Rant & Rave: Brown Lipstick
Tell us what you love and hate about...
Brown Lipstick
I love brown lipsticks that are rosy/plummy instead of more yellow-toned, as I feel like I can’t pull those off well!
— Christine
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43 Comments
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Love rosy brown lipsticks.
Same. Like foundation, brown lipsticks can get too yellow. E.G. Bite spring 2017: none selected; didn’t bother to try them on. Coppery or rosy browns, I’m in.
The 1990s was my favorite decade, so of course I love brown lipstick! I think most browns work well on me. I have quite a few, including my old drugstore favorite, Revlon’s classic Toast of New York, plus higher end browns like Urban Decay 1993 and MAC Persistence, to name a few.
Ahhh the 90’s *sighs* great times! I rocked a lot of brown lippies back then. The only name I remember is Clinique’s Tenderheart. I like the look of plummy browns but on my pigmented lips alot of “plums” turn an ugly brown shade on my lips. Some “plums” look like my own exact lip color. Other brown lippies tend to make my teeth look yellow. Just recently (this Saturday) I came across what I consider to be my HG plummy brown shade (at least on my lips) it’s Milani’s lipstick in Rose Femme. I love it so much.
All love.
Love coppery, rosy/reddish and plum toned brown lipsticks! Very flattering with my coloring. However, not a fan of anything that veers too warm and yellow based, ie; MAC Photo or those Bite LE lippys from earlier this year. Not into strong gray-brown on me, either, except for MAC VG Rihanna 2.
VG Rihanna 2 is such a fun colour to wear. I like it a lot, but I feel I shouldn’t as it should look awful, but it doesn’t.
Now I wonder where I’ve put it, I’ve not seen it in a long time. Will have to go search.
Glad s.o. Else doesn’t have total control of their stash. Actually WAS laughing at the comment.
I love them , i’m NW45-47 so it’s nude for me.
any particular colors you’d recommend? I’m around a NC40-NC45
Hi Monica 🙂
I recommend
– 945 stormy sahara from maybelline , i love also touchable taupe 940 but if you are NC40-45 so yellow toned it might be too cool tone for you. Stormy sahara is perfect
– Just Peachy from wet n wild or kinda sexy from mac they are dupe ( i cannot stand wet n wild packaging ) . Oh you will need a brown lip liner with this one.
– Sandstorm from Wet n wild or Persistance from Mac (dupe too it’s a brown with yellow undertones)
– Truffle Raine liquid lipstick from coloured raine ( yellow brown too)
– Barely There from Essence ( i live in France so idk if it’s available where you live. I think Essence is available at Ulta)
– Nyx Madeleine, Praline and GingerSnap butter gloss are everything
i need to test out so much more but it helps 🙂
Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply! I will definitely check these out <3 and those NYX glosses look great!
My natural lips are a muted rose with a hint of purple.
Yellow or orange based browns are ghastly on me.
Can do rosey, but honestly would rather pull something more true to rose itself.
I can get away with red/blue spectrum browns but in all honestly, browns are not the most flattering on me. Yellow browns are a no go.
I ADORE plummet brown lipsticks. Those are my all time favorite family of lipstick shades.
Yellow browns, or deep dark browns look good on Me, but only with minimal eyes, and no blush. So I don’t wear that shade of brown often!
Nope! They wash me out of life. Lol! I rarely use them and when I do they have to be light with a hint of pink or red or coral otherwise is a big no, no for my skin tone.
I like some brownish lipsticks, I also go for the plummy, rosey shades. Yellowy tones are really hard for me to look even a little bit OK in.
Hard to find one that works on cool skin! Can make your teeth look yellow.
I have auburn hair and hazel green eyes, so warm colors usuallly look best on me. I too loved the collection of brown lipsticks available in the nineties. I can’t tell you how many of my faves have been discontined and it is a struggle to find replacements. Despite my warm hair and eye colors, my skin and lips have a strong pink undertone – I guess because I am so fair. So colors of blush and lipstick turn on me, and do not look like thier swatches, making finding replacement shades even mare difficult. But I can get away with some yellow brown lipsticks because my lips add pink to them all by themselves! Smashbox’s Chai is a good example of a peachy brown lipstick that looks great on me, while MAC Siss looks too yellow, and taupey browns turn truly vampiric! Some favorites are MAC Touch, MAC lip pencil in Hover which turne any nude lipstick into the perfect brown for me), Laura Mercier’s Sheer lipstick in Dulce de Leche, and MAC’s recently discontinued Velvetease lip pencil in “Oh Honey”. I grabbed as many as I could of those because I had warning that the shade was going to be idscontinued. All my f avorite Bobbi Brown shades have been discontinued – golden brown, toasted pink, brownie nude, honeyed tea (LE), Hazelnut (LE) and recently, Suntan PInk!! Nars discontinued Corinthe, a color even salespeople called their redhead’s color, and their Audacious collection had no medium brown toned colors until they added one recently. That I am looking forward to trying, as well as two brown based colors in their new liquid matte lipsticks (sorry, don’t remember the new color names, I just got the email ad about them). Nars matte lipstick pencil in Bahama was recommended, I haven’t tried it yet, but I will need a replacement for the discontinued “Oh Honey”, so I will be getting around to it. Another good brownish pink lip pencil is Laura Mercier’s Hazelnut Tea, goes with everything like Hover does, only slightly pinker. AndI istill haven’t named all the drugstore and beauty supply store shades that have been discontinued over the years. End of summer/fall collections are the best time to find great brown based shades in limited edition collections, so I am going to run thru the blog now, I haven’t been such a loyal reader this summer due to otner pressing issues but its always nice to come back to a forum that is as informational as it is cathartic for us make up lovers. Hope this helped other brown lipstick lovers to find some new shades or brands to investigte. I take your suggestions as well!
I have to be careful that lipsticks don’t end up turning pink on me. Try some of Milani’s brown shades – they are fabulous. And not expensive either.
Astute. Well said.
I have the same coloring as you (but with brown eyes). One of my all time faves is MAC Paramount. It’s not a straight brown, has a bit of red/mauve in it but definitely does not turn pink like many colors do.
Also NARS Bansar! I forgot about that one. It’s a lighter mauve/tan. I think they still sell it.
Wearing any form of brown depresses me.
Love! I think there’s a brown lipcolor for everyone. I need them to be rosy/pinky, but peachy browns look wonderful on people who can wear warm shades. It’s the closest I can get to nude.
I look horrible in any brown lipsticks, they look dead on me and I’m a natural redhead but my lips are pigmented and pink. I’ve got pink and yellow undertones and it’s hard to find something that look great on my lips!
I was a teenager in the 90s so I wore a lot of brown lipstick at that time. The ones that are really plain brown (no rosy, plum or peachy undertones) look very dated to me now, but I still love a reddish brown.
I like a hint of it in pinks and reds, but I’m too fair and pink toned for a straight brown. Burberry Rosewood is the only one I’ve ever found that worked on me.
When they’re too dark and just really brown, it looks really aging on me.. i do prefer them with a bit of pink/ rose lean to them, it gives my whole look a monochromatic feel. I do love it with a hazy brown eye.
I need rosy, plummy tones of brown lipsticks. Any yellow toned browns make me look dead. If the tone isn’t right and the yellow undertones are not too bad I can sometimes make a color work by adding a plum, red or berry lip pencil underneath.
I love browns that are deep rich coppery red toned , like autumn leaves . Especially for fall.I have warm skin tone so it works for me .
I love brown lipsticks, for the most part. Rosy browns are my favorites, but I also like warm browns and coppers, or browns with some a purple or lavender tone in them. I also really love greiges, which surprised me.
I don’t like super yellow-based brown lipsticks. I think they’re ugly and they look awful on me.
Rave: All raves – love, love, love, brown lipsticks – particularly coppery ones. They are the kind of shades that either work well for you or don’t at all.
My favs are: Milani Cinnamon Spice, Candied Toffee and Bronze Beauty
L’Oreal Untainted Spice
Maybelline InStyle Sienna (burgundy brown), Coffee Craze
Clairins Jolie Rouge in Fig, Spicy Cinnamon
Elizabeth Arden in Bronze, Iced Coffee
You get the drift – all of these lipsticks are a different shade of brown and some of them have combinations with red/burgundy tones
Rant: No rants from me!
I love all browns!!! Given my medium-brown skin with a yellow undertone (MAC NC42-NC45), I’ve loved this trend!
Yellow-toned browns have finally given me my perfect nude! I wish I had heard about the Bite Beauty LE lippies everyone is complaining about below!!!
The greyish browns are also nice neutrals.
I like rosy-toned browns because these come out being a nice pinkish neutral on me.
It’s not too late to get Bite’s spring line. 4 of the shades are still available on sephora.com, and they’re actually on sale. They’re the Amuse Bouche Edgy Neutrals
Oh, I love brown-toned lipsticks! MAC Taupe is a favorite of mine, also Revlon Mink. What I have trouble with is finding a a brown lipstick that is just a smidge deeper than my skintone, so I’m currently on the hunt for that!
Ugh – nothing appeals to me about brown lipstick! I’d never wear a brown lipstick.
My skintone & personal aesthetic/ preference can handle any brown lipstick, but it mainly depends on my hair color. When I do a warmer brown, auburn, or red shade, I find warmer browns look best; when I go more violet-based, plummy/burgundy, or straight black, greiges, taupes, and cooler browns are preferred.
Browns are nice to have on hand to layer with other colors, too. I use them to tone down reds that are too bright, nudes that are too orange/peach, deepen shades that appear plum/burgundy in the tube, but end up way too light, or pinks that are too “bubblegum pink”. I also like them under a gloss that’s not quite “right”. Sometimes, I get bored, and see what I can come up with…
Clinique tenderheart was my first high end lipstick since I was a teen in the 90’s, and I still have a soft spot for it. In general though, brown isn’t flattering on me. I have a cool undertone and things can look excessively orangey or yellowy on me really quick. Anything dark has to be jut the right tone, too. I do enjoy my NARS Golshan pencil, which becomes a brownish brick red on me.
I love all browns – brown is one of my favorite colors in general. That said, I really like a neutral beigey brown the best for me, or slightly warm tones – the lighter the better. If it’s named Beige, or Honey or Caramel, I’m probably going to like it.
Can you list your favourite rose/plum browns Christine? Thanks!
I LOVE brown lipstick! Just about any time I see someone on YT or maybe Instagram showing a brown on them (regardless of skin tone) and saying they think they don’t pull it off, I love it on them. On myself, I love wearing very cool toned taupe browns and neutral straight-up brown. I really love dark browns.
I love browns! I love KVD Lolita, WnW Mochalicious, MAC Antique Velvet, NYX Downtown Beauty and Club Hopper and Colourpop Hollywood BLVD. I can’t wait ’til fall so I can expand my collection.