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What lip colors do you wear now but didn't when you first started wearing makeup?
Everything, instead of just coral…
— Christine
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I guess I haven’t really changed much. Always loved nudes, pinks, browns, peaches. Still wear them. Still wear mattes, sheets, creams. Liquid lips aren’t really new nor are lip balms. Still can’t get into a bold red lip. Too high maintenance and just not me.
PURPLE!!! In every tone, finish and depth just about! And also 2 blues; Colourpop So Wavy and UD Time from their Alice In Wonderland collex this past spring. But I love purple more! ?
Colors: I wear brighter reds, pinks and oranges now because I know how to wear them – back then it was always pale and muted colors. I still love a muted coral or mauve, but I don’t feel like that has to be my default like it was when I was younger.
Textures: Back when I first started wearing makeup, I wore frosts, glosses (bonus points for frosty glosses) and mattes but didn’t like plain ole satins. Now it is the reverse, I prefer satins and tend to stay away from most other finishes.
Used to only wear nudes. Now im obsessed with reds!!
All of them! I didn’t start to wear lipstick and gloss until I was in my twenties.
When I first started wearing makeup, I wore mostly conventional colors (reds, red browns, browns, berry) because they weren’t that many non-traditional colors unless you bought from indie companies. Then I decided to try a few purple lippies (thanks to ColourPop), discovered how great they looked on me, and now I have an entire drawer full of them, and wear them often. It’s funny, but pink is the hardest color for me to pull off (it clashes against my yellow undertones), but I can rock purples, grays, blues, and blacks.
Lol! Can’t blame you there. Coral is a classic.
For me it would be nudes. I actually have a good collection of colors I would describe as nude at this point, although that was the most difficult category for me when I first started wearing lipstick. None of the ones I tried looked flattering on me until I found Laura Geller’s Dolce, which ends up looking like a sheer light nude brown-pink on me rather than the medium pink it’s marketed as. I have to admit though, the only nudes I have in my collection that look really good on me no matter what are Dolce and Chanel’s Adrienne. The other ones I have (Nars Raquel and Brigitte, Charlotte Tilbury Penelope Pink and Bitch Perfect, some others I can’t remember off the top of my head) are still a “look” on me. The rest of my makeup has to be just right to make them work.
Bright red 🙂
Haha, my answer is coral! When I started wearing makeup I was wearing nudish pinks or vampy burgundys and purples.
I used to wear nudes/natural colors only, but now I’ve ventured out into deep, vampy colors, classic reds, purples… 🙂
Same here! Since fall is coming I’ll be pulling out my berries and dark reds.
Purple and berries! Mauves! I used to wear coral all the time but I avoid it like the plague now.
I love purple tones on my lips. Didn’t know I could pull off purple years ago.
And in general – lipstick. Lipsticks used to be smelly, pearly, dry and yuck when I was a teen. Everyone then was about lip glosses that smelled like candy or the fruity tinted Nivea balms.
Matte lipstick! Firstly, there wasn’t any real matte lipstick that I knew of back then. Secondly, my lips were naturally too dry and still are, but now I care for them much more, in order to be able to wear matte lipstick!
Everything that wasn’t available when I was young, for real. When I first started wearing lipstick circa 1982, we didn’t have a much in the way of alternative colors available to the general public. I felt I was lucky if I found a really bright fuchsia. A few years later, Wet n Wild and a few others came out with some “weird” colors, as well as glitters, etc, but even then shades were limited. Now there is so much available. I wear pretty much any color now, including duochromes.
I used to wear only very subtle lip colors. I wouldn’t call myself a bold lip kind of person today either but I like a bit more color, like not too dark berry shades.
Red is the only one I had to ‘grow into.’ Probably not until my 30s. The rest were due to trends..first the browns, now the greiges. Although I’ll go dark in the reds and browns, I’m simply too old for kale and squid ink, which I adore. Too old for midrange or pale/sheer ‘offbeat’ colors, too, but they don’t appeal as much. Metallics are probably on the ‘outgrown’ list as well. Sport them while you can, folks.
I don’t believe in being “too old” for certain shades…but in practice, I’m still trying to work up the nerve to wear my most unconventional shades of lipstick (a shimmery green shade, a matte blue shade, and NYX Stone Fox) in public.
Steph, I have on deep rooted, which is reasonably , well, gray and darkish, but I am 2 weeks from my 50th hs reunion. I am pushing 70. Still can do many, but you tend to look like you’re trying to look young. I think I could do stone fox, and might do junkie from the palette. Still on the deep reds and hot oranges, Vampy purples, but sometimes on trend looks pretty ‘trying too hard’ on s.o. My age. Metallics accentuate any peri oral lines. Course, I’d rather do the bite blackened offbeat than any coral. Ever. Don’t you sometimes feel that something is too Teeny bopper or bubblegum to wear it now? Don’t you feel some product is targeted at a younger market? That it is not quite adult enough? That’s kind of the concept, except you add a few decades.
So glad to hear you say that…nothing says “old lady” like coral.
Purple lips which seems easily mainstream at this point. I love that.
I used to wear just reds, wines and pinks. One’s color changes a bit as the years go by, and now corals have a big role.
Again, same… except I used to only wear light pinks. I remember trying red for the first time and being so scared so I made sure it was a stay-at-home-all-day kind of day. I ended up loving it and couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to try it!
These days, I’m always drawn toward bright pinks but never wear them. I think my problem is that to wear them properly, I have to be super precise, but my natural lip lines don’t have an exact beginning and end. So bizarre!
I remember when I first started in this whole makeup craze, I thought rosy tones were so dated. But they’re coming back! And I do quite like them 🙂
I have gone away from pinks, for the most part and now stick to MLBB, but a bit deeper with a deeper line. I also wear reds more often.
MLBB colors, purple, and pink. I didn’t know what MLBB colors I should get since the first one I got didn’t look good on me and I hadn’t found any YouTubers yet who were around my skintone. Now I have a lot of MLBB shades along with a few purple-y pinks.
It was much easier to wear brights and dark lipcolors than MLBB shades back then since most of the time I just had to look at the formula and wear time mostly.
Coral, all the way…
HA, everything other than pink!
I wear more browns and dark navy blues and my BiTE Kale has gotten so much wear since I got it. I wear it just about every wknd!
Nudes… I just thought they looked chalky. Now I’ve found great nudes with various undertones and depth that work well with my skin tone.
Pink! When the first started wearing makeup I was a goth chick, so pink was out of the question. My color of choice then was Urban Decay’s Roach…which is back now in the vintage collection!
Cool colors, one of my mother’s friends told me I was warm when I was young, maybe 10 so I only wore warm colors.
Red
Coral (red-leaning corals and UD Snitch, anyway…still can’t do most pinky or very light corals)
Fuchsia
Lots of purple shades I didn’t think I could pull off
For someone who usually only wore lipstick back in the day, I certainly didn’t go with a wide variety of shades. I would mainly sick with neutrals, a maroon shade that I thought was the closest thing to red I could pull off, and that dark WnW shade that was out in the 90s (usually blotted down)…you know, that one that looked a lot like UD Blackmail. Of course, bright lips weren’t really the style in the mid-90s, and there were also a ton of shades I didn’t think I could pull off.
i have never used bright pinks and coral lip colors before getting into makeup but now i love to wear such colors.. i had always wore muted pinks and mauve and brown lippies
True purples, dark almost black reds, orange, and red!! At my job they call me the lady with the red lipstick :P.
For the longest time, orange was my biggest fear!! I’m warm toned, with dark hair and eyes, and tanned skin. So you’d think orange would be by go to for summer ahah. Iv worn it quite a few times this summer and now I feel so much better about it!!
When I started wearing lipstick (hundreds and hundreds of years ago), I wore a very frosty, ice pink. My mom absolutely hated it!!! Mom was right. I need color. I finally discovered pink-reds and cherry reds. It took me way too long to come to my senses. Lol.
Every time I hear you mention your obsession with coral, it makes me so happy. For the first two years that I was doing makeup, the only blush or lipstick I would use is coral, and it’s still my favorite shade to this day. After that phase I got into OCC’s Lip tar and bought a ton of different colors so I ran the gamut of blue, yellow, black+white lips and everything in between. These days I am cozying up to nudes much more (Just swiped up the Flesh set from Pat McGrath and it I am VERY pleased with the colors) and I find it lets me go crazier on the eyes. (although that never stopped me in the past, LOL!)
Red. I’ve been wearing makeup for 20 years and red terrified me for 19 of it! I bought Jeffreestars hoe, hoe, hoe last Christmas and gave it a whirl. I fell in love!
Red-orange. I’ve noticed people with my coloring wearing it well over the last year or two & decided to give it a try. I get so many complements & I like the change as well.
Nudes instead of pinks
Really bright colours like neon pink, Barbie pink bright orange etc.
I used to wear only browns when I was a teen and in early 20’s or pink but I rarely wear a brown lip now and have to be in a really “girly girl mood” to wear pink- I opt for red most now that I’m in my 30’s.
Red! I was a nude girl for years. When I first started dating my husband I was testing reds out but wasn’t sure I was comfortable wearing red or that it even looked good on me. I wore red to his house and asked him if he liked it, 3 years later I’m still wearing red. ?
When i was younger i used to wear just pink and fuchsia lipstick, but now i wear also red, oxblood and nude
Red,did not where that shade. I mostly wore light pinks and nude.
When I started wearing lipcolor, and i use the term loosely, very pale was popular. We used coverup in a bullet on our lips and covered it with lipgloss. I can’t remember if it was Elizabeth Arden or Estee Lauder. Now I wear most any traditional lip color that is flattering. Although I like nontraditional colors on others, I don’t feel I carry it off.
I love that look, the skin color with or without gloss.
it was the pre Twiggy look!
Nudes.
Took me years to find some I think are wearable for me. There are a lot of them that would be fantastic for a zombie-walk 🙂
MAC Patisserie was the first one I think looks OK on me, now I’ve added UD Liar, so yes, I have two now.
It’s kind of funny – when I first got into makeup I wore “raisin” type colors, and after lots of different colors in between, I now find myself going back to those “raisin” type things. My BEST color is Nars Banned Red, and I find I’m picking things that are close to that color from other brands as well. It’s the perfect red for me, not too bright so I can wear it every day. I guess I had it right when I started out. Those colors look good on me.
Red, I regret the times I shied away from it because my skintone makes every red in the world look like it belongs on my face. I still turn away from typical bolds as I find they tend to make my face and expression look harsh or make my teeth look yellow 🙁
when I first started makeup : browns, pinks and nudes
now: different reds, corals, warm pinks/peachy pinks and still nudes but dropped dark browns though I like a natural shimmery gold light brown.
when i first started wearing lipstick i was all about the browns. now i wear pink, fuschia, red and magenta.
Nudes
RED!
Still don’t feel I can pull off reds, but I wear pinks and peaches now, before I use to stick with nudes and berries.
I never wear orange or too nude lips. I am very pale and some of the super nude lips make me look dead. I love wearing liquid lipsticks but some of them really crack my lips. My old lips have a lot of creases, nooks and crannies so really drying liquid lipsticks are not very attractive on me!
Easy answer: all of them. When I first started wearing makeup, I didn’t wear lip color; it took me years to get to that point.
I went from never wearing lipstick to never not wearing lipstick. I’ve been reaching for more nude colors lately, but I love me a good purple or gold, and I wear pinks and reds quite a bit.
At 53 years old, surprisingly, there are quite a few colors I wear that would have been out of the question just 3 years ago. The first color that was out of my comfort zone is Purple. Purple is my favorite color and I was surprised how much I liked it for a lip color. Since then, I’ve slowly added other colors. I now wear lip shades in gray, blue, and black. But the color I wear now that is the most surprising will not seem like a big deal. In the last couple months I have began to wear nude lip shades. Nude lips were not done in the time of my teens and early adulthood. So I had to get use to seeing myself in a nude lip color. I also love the metallic shades. I lived through the 70s and 80s and thought that metallic lipstick was a bad idea. But I’m enjoying them. I guess I’m evolving which is a good thing.
Frosty blue or any frosty lipstick. I was in high school during late 90s and early 2000s so it was very trendy then to use frosty pink, white, silver, lilac, and green lipsticks but I never felt right in them. Now, I rock them like no other! I love all finishes 🙂
Nudes and pinks. I started wearing makeup in the 90’s so I favored a deep, rich lip color or a very bold red. I have only in recent years gotten into pinks and nudes. Back then I didn’t think they were flattering.
Purple…. Love, love, love Mac Heroine.
Recently went blonde after being red my whole life and just love the versatility.
I wore pink in the 70’s. Only pink. Now my favorite is a fish is with a brown on top. The color is amazing on me.
Pinky nudes. It took me awhile to realize I could wear nudes, just the pinkish ones instead of the brownish ones.
As weird as it sounds, nudes and just neutral colors in general! When I first got into makeup I thought nudes were boring and pointless and wore exclusively red, for everything in life that I did. Now I only have a handful of reds and a very large stash of browns. I’ve never been able to get into pink though!
Nudes.. I started off with dark, vampy colors and held on to that for a long time. I loved nude colors but I took me a lot of time to find a shade that was actually nude on my skintone.
I’d say most colors in general! When I started wearing small amounts of makeup in high school, I’d only wear eye makeup and nothing on my lips because I hated the texture of lipstick. I didn’t start wearing lipstick until I was about 21 or so!
I am more open to wearing purples and reds now.
Hi Christine and Temptalia,
Growing up in a strict Italian-Catholic household, makeup was almost shunned upon. I was allowed to wear nude to very light pale pink color lipstick and a little bit of blush. When I was allowed to wear makeup I wore red lipstick, foundation, powder, mascara, blush, eyeshadow. As I got older, I actually Love all types of pink lipsticks, not that much foundation or powder, but I do love a great smoky eye and mascara! My eyes are always done before I leave the house. Foundation and powder, I keep very light and glowy. I’m comfortable just wearing a light gloss on my lips. When you aren’t “allowed” to do what you want, you tend to over do it when you are “allowed” to … Funny. Only to realize that less Is more and you DON’T need to over do it! You want your natural beauty to shine through, you want people to SEE THAT, and NOT a face full of makeup or a mask. You can have fun with Makeup and still look like you and Not someone else. It’s all about learning, and you can’t learn without making mistakes. ??
For the longest time I wore only “natural” (read: boring) colors. In the past few years I’ve added red, and any other color that appeals to me. It’s so freeing and fun!
I have always loved to collect colors whether in the garden as the makeup field so I try all kinds of lipsticks except darkest shades I’m too pale so no vampire look for me. Never have liked Browns much specially dark times. Berry, wines, purples I do love and the Reds not too much into pinks either. One color that I do love is coral and have it in every shade mixed with red, pinks. It really makes my hazel eyes pop out best truck ever the coral lipstick. Usually wear them lot more during Spring/Summer but in this crazy California weather (which is actually heavenly sent since I’m a runner mostly pleasant weather) I can get away wearing every time and the fashion is so twisted here also. ?
As a teenager, I used to wear a pale pink gloss or a slim tint lip color from Maybelline that was very close to my natural lip tone, maybe a shade darker. Can’t remember the name of that color. Now, I still like those colors, but also white, purple, brown, beige…anything except red, coral, or really offbeat tones like blue and green. Red and coral have always just turned an ugly shade of pinky coral on me. Exception: a very brown or warm red. Then I might stand a chance depending on the formula.
I haven’t really changed all that much: different shades of brown and copper. berry shades and red.
I think the opposite is true. I was a teen in the 80s and game for much more. Also, less aware of what was actually flattering on me! LOL! I now wouldn’t wear but love seeing the options some companies such as colourpop offer for those who enjoy them. Not a lack of confidence or anything like that, but it just does not appeal or even occur to me now. I enjoy wearing lipstick and putting on a shade I love in a formula I know works just feels great!
Uh oh. I didn’t mention any colors. Colourpop Contempo and Bite Pastille are perfection. I sometimes wear some more intense plummy mauvish shades or dark muted reds also more nude-like versions of mauves but it’s all in those families. Can’t do anything too warm or brown or orange. I guess I’m a little boring. 🙂