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What lip color do you want to wear but rarely do?

I love those cotton candy pinks on others and in the tube, but I rarely feel like they work on me unless I go for a really smoky eye.

— Christine

80 Comments

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Katherine T. Avatar

Soft coral pinks and soft baby pinks, they look so sweet and innocent, but they almost always look terrible on me! Most are too light, and the pink clashes with my yellow undertone

Veronica Avatar

I really like beige nudes and brown-toned pinks or reds, but as I’m rather fair skinned (NW10-15 range), it doesn’t always quite work out. Warm pinks are pretty much a no-go for the exact same reason.

ouineque Avatar

Yes, I agree, it is high maintenance! But some wear off nicer then others (that crumble and so on). We just have to settle for not having completely flawless red lips the whole day, and start wearing red more often. Hihihihi. After reading all the comments here, I really feel like start ‘practicing’ with sheer or semi-opaque colors and go more opaque little by little, since we like it so much. It’s a shame isn’t it!

Angelcat47 Avatar

Have you thought about applying it with your finger? This can make it look more casual. Just press it on until you get the desired look.

ouineque Avatar

Thanks Angelcat47! I know this trick to stain your lips but I somehow forgot about it. It’s indeed a good way to make a darker lip more effortless. I’m gonna try it out on of these days!

Astrild Avatar

Nudes. Nudes looks awesome in everone but I feel they wash me out except when I go for a really bold eye look but it’s not usual.

Julia Avatar

Red! And really vampy deep burgundies and purples. But while I envy strong lips on others, I just never really feel comfortable with lipstick. Plus I am always worried that they are going to transfer and get ruined once I start eating/talking.

Anime Avatar

I feel like brown lips just wouldn’t look that hot on me, so I’ve never tried them. I see so many girls pull them off so well… I should probably just go out there and try it, but I just never have!

kjh Avatar

Got halo, ’cause I thought I had swatched it. Now, I love orange. Taj Mahal is a fave, and I thought halo would go well. Turned out I was wrong. Halo, on me is very yellow and major metallic. Not great. Retuned and said, put it on the tester. Just FYI, so you know that it’s a real yellow orange. I share some of your likes, like Besame noir red. Caveat emptor, which in makeupese translates to lip swatch before you buy.

Katherine T. Avatar

Because of my yellow undertones, I used to avoid orange lipstick like the plague, but have been experimenting. The red oranges look better on me than true oranges, but a sheer orange can look flattering. I’ve been trying Colour Pop because they have a ton of orange lipsticks for cheap, so if one doesn’t work out, I don’t feel so bad. Then if I find one I like, I can buy more, or cross-check for dupes under Temptalia to find lippies from UD, Maybelline, MAC, BITE that might work as well

Stacy Avatar

Nudes. They’re so trendy that I feel like I should have one or two in my wardrobe. But I have yet to find one that doesn’t make me look like a corpse.

Debbie Avatar

Any lipstick that is an extreme, whether it be a very pale nude, or a very dark, vampy tone of any color will look aweful on me. I stick to mid-range tones and the occasional true red. It’s just what works.

PerfumedGal Avatar

I adore Mac’s Ruby Woo and have had compliments. However, when I wore it I was looking in every reflective surface for the entire day checking for transfer, so I gave up on it ?

Kylie5 Avatar

I Love red lipstick but I rarely wear it although it Looks really good on me.
If I wear red I feel Quite uncomfortable and have to Look in the mirror very very often because I am always afraid that it does not Look acurate. I once had red lipstick on and the Wind blew a hair onto my lips and I Took the hair away. At home I looked into the mirror and I had a red line across my face. There was lipstick on the hair and When i Took it away It painted a line across my Face. So I was walking around, Shopping etc with this red line on my Face and NOBODY told me about it.

Nisha Avatar

Purples and vampy colors. I love them but in the Caribbean its like summer most of the year so those colors aren’t really appropriate.

Arantxa Avatar

I would love to wear hot pinks like Candy YumYum, but I’m afraid it won’t look good on my skin tone. I have Dangerously Red and I’m kind of afraid to wear it.

Other colors I’d like to wear (more often) are blue (Witching Hour in particular. I know it’s also really purple but it shows up 50% blue on me) and grey(ish) colors like Stone and RiRi Nude. Both look suprisingly good on me, but I feel like they are not every day colors, yet I don’t find them dark enough for night time. I feel a bit stupid, because I wear very dark reds, browns and purples any day of the year, no matter where I’m going or what time it is. I would even feel completely comfortable wearing a true black, but I’m afraid to wear pinks and don’t know when/where to wear greys. ?

Sonia Avatar

Same as you, those light pinks look terrible on me but I love how they look on others and in the store. Makes me look like I have a dark orange face and yellow teeth!

Maria Avatar

I don’t wear bright reds or really dark dark lipsticks. I also don’t like very light lipsticks on me with my coloring. If it is a sheer lipstick/gloss I will do Dark and maybe Light.

Judy Avatar

I adore luscious Apricot shades! When I see them in a tube or on a woman’s lips, I think…”how beautiful”. I have purchased 2 or 3 shades and when I put them on, I looked awful…so disappointing. I’ve always heard that we gravitate towards colors that look good on us, maybe I’m looking at the wrong shades of Apricot!

Nikole Avatar

Hot, bright, or light reds — wish I were more confident to wear them, but I just feel that they are so glaring.
Darker reds are a little more wearable for me.

Bernadette Avatar

RED which I love, and think looks good on me, but I feel like most of the time it’s just too much. Most of my coworkers and friends where minimal makeup so I just feel too done up in red. I need to get over that since I love red lipstick

Naomi Avatar

neutral toned purples (my teeth aren’t white enough for them), vampy wines and purples, black, blues and greens. recently got into corals and oranges, which actually look quite good on me! so I’ve been wearing those a lot more. I also need to wear red more often, I have so many beautiful reds but I mostly only wear nudes and pinks

Margie Avatar

Dark red lipsticks and too light pink lipsticks. I like red lipsticks but prefer reddish pink lipsticks and medium pink lipsticks. I feel they look better on me.

Deborah S. Avatar

I am so pale that I just cannot find a nude that works well with my pale and cool undertones. They all make me look ghastly. I cannot wear corals or just haven’t found the right coral/orange yet, either.

Christina Avatar

Any lilac or lavender colors. They are sooo beautiful, especially colourpops marshmallow for example but I can’t find a good outfit to go with it! If anyone has any ideas other than just all black or all white let me know 🙂

Cathy Avatar

Definitely deep, dark shades of plum, berry, wine, and purple. I really love them but they just don’t look good on me. And it’s weird because I see other people with my colouring (MAC NW15-20) wearing them and they look great, but on me, they just don’t work. Hmm. Maybe it’s a perception thing…..

Fran Avatar

Peach! It’s got two strikes against it — not only does it have orange/yellow in it, it’s too light for me and washes me out. If a coral has enough pink in it (like MAC Elegant Accent), or red (like NARS Greta), then I can pull it off, although it’s a bit dramatic against my cool undertones. But peach is not only orange- or yellow-based, it’s just too light and falls into the category of lip colors that make me look sick/dead. I gave up on it long ago, sadly — tt’s such a beautiful color on most other people!

Erin B. Avatar

I really love dark browns and more unconventional colors, like blue or green, but they always feel too over the top for my everyday life in small, unfortunately conservative town, so I hardly ever wear them.

Susan Dowman Nevling Avatar

Hmmm, I love most reds but seldom wear them bc they are often too bright or deep for my coloring. I have a few in my collection that I love, tried but can’t wear.

Holly Avatar

I so love bright, true red, (think Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger. It’s just so . . . . . . I don’t know, bold, stunning, feminine, sexual, almost predatory. And I. Look. Horrible. in it . . . . sob. But hey, ya can’t have it all!

Nikki J. Avatar

I’m infatuated with the look of opaque black lipstick, but I don’t own one nor do I see myself buying one in the near future because I don’t know of any place or occasion where I’d actually wear it…

I just get my fix looking at YouTube videos of makeup tutorials incorporating black lips! Lol

Angelcat47 Avatar

Red!! I’m not shy; I just can’t seem to find a good color for me. I have light skin with light golden undertones and my teeth are naturally a bit yellow. Any suggestions? TIA!!

Bonnie Avatar

Black. It’s just not appropriate for most of the things I do. When I want to be edgy, I get away with white or chalky light purple, but black is just a little too out there for someone who isn’t a young goth kid. Red just doesn’t work on me – I think I got one in Glossybox that wasn’t awful, but I Iost it. Otherwise, if I want to wear a color, I wear it! Pink, brown, nude, purple, mauve, orange, peach…I never wear coral, but I don’t want to.

Mo Merrell Avatar

Red – I feel like a floozy sometimes or that’s it inappropriate however I still wear it now if I could wear my black every day, I would but I think that might turn some heads in the office. (insert major eye roll)

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