A Beauty Editor's Desert Island Red Lipstick
Here at T&C, we pride ourselves on our discerning eye for quality. With Tried & True, our editors will give you an inside look at the pieces they simply cannot live without.
You can take away all my other makeup, but you’ll have to pry my red lipstick out of my cold dead hands. It is the first—sometimes only—makeup I apply in the morning, often before I even drink a cup of coffee or brush my teeth. It stabilizes me, humanizes me, acts as a dab of emphatic paint that says: I am here, I am alive, I am ready to face the day.
And now, here is something that sounds like an exaggeration, but is not: I own 47 lipsticks, every single one in a similar shade of red. I shudder to think the number of bullets I have cycled through over the years, each one thought at first to be a bullseye, but almost always with one eventual, inevitable flaw. My Holy Grail color is poppy-bright, a smidge towards pink on the color wheel and with a slight blue undertone; my ideal finish is satin; the texture I seek is hydrating, creamy, and opaque—but with just enough true-lip translucence. Oh, and it must wear for hours, if not, miracle of miracles, all day.
In my shamefully over-full lipstick drawer, there are only three that have stood the test of time and have ticked off most, if not all, of the above boxes. MAC Ruby Woo (this, I have worn since college and cannot, will not, quit it–no matter how much it dries out my lips); Chanel’s lovely and indelible Rouge Allure Ink; and Guerlain’s titanically classy Rouge G. But earlier this year I was introduced to a newcomer that I dare say might be un-rivaled in its perfection: Dior Rouge Forever Transfer-Proof Lipstick in Forever Glam.
I was introduced to it by the man who created it—Peter Philips, creative and image director of Christian Dior makeup. When he presented the new formula to a group of journalists on press junket in May, he described it as a “liquid lipstick in stick form”—a unique, first-of-its-kind "clean formula," ultra-long-wear (the claim is 16 hours) bullet that wouldn’t dry out lips, thanks to the presence of a hydrating peony extract. I knew Dior Forever Liquid to be excellent (add it to that list above of favorites), but find liquid applicators to be messy and not at all suited to my typical slapdash application technique, so I was instantly reeled in. I reached instinctively for Dior’s iconic 999 red shade, but just as I was about to try it, Philips—who, it’s fair to say, has an eye for these things—suggested that I try 760, Forever Glam, instead. And wow, was he right.
The finish and performance are exactly as Philips described: “a lip color with the long-lasting one-swipe color payoff of a liquid, but with a smooth comfortable feeling that lasts all day.”
It is in fact so ultra-hydrating that I don’t need to use a lip balm at all when I wear it. It feels effortless—so much so that I forget it’s there… which is good because that transfer-proof claim is no joke. It leaves no sloppy stain on the inside of masks (which I will forever wear on the New York subway and on airplanes going forward, pandemic or no pandemic); it does not leave marks on clothes, nor on other humans or pets (I kiss both a lot).
And while 999 is the classic red, 760 may be the shade I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Red lipstick lovers know that there is one precise, magical hue that can make your whole face light up. It makes your skin look more radiant, your hair color richer, your eyes gleam brighter—hell, it might even make you look taller. For me, that’s this color. If you watch the Late Show, you’ll be familiar with the Colbert Questionert, which seeks to unlock a person’s inner truths with a series of probing questions, one of which is ‘What’s the one item you really should throw away?’ My answer: 46 lipsticks. Or, ok, at least 42.
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