Lipstick, For People Who Don’t Use It

It’s Makeup Monday! Yay! A few weeks ago I was mentioning something about lipstick to one of my friends and her eight-year old daughter was standing right next to us. “Why do you wear lipstick?” the little girl asked, “you’re pretty enough without it.” I thought that was terribly sweet of her and I didn’t really know what to say. What I thought was, “honey, you have never seen me without lipstick so you really have no idea.” The truth is that once you get to be a grown-up you need a little something extra. Whether it’s a lot extra or a little extra is up to each woman. Listen, I don’t care if you’re Victoria’s Secret-ish gorgeous; you need a bit of help. I hate to burst your bubble but if you’re not wearing makeup you probably seem washed out and your eyes look beady and little. I’m telling you this as a friend.

Think of it like this: you live someplace;  a house, an apartment, whatever. If you had nothing in it but necessary furniture, would you look around and think, “now that we have a sofa and a bed, we don’t need anything else.”  Of course not! You would start decorating! Because an undecorated house is a boring house. Even college guys decorate! (Not that it looks good or anything, but still).

Your face is the same way. It’s perfectly fine the way it is. But do you want to be fine or do you want to be more than fine?

One summer in college I had a roommate named Annie. She was the funniest person I have ever met. Seriously, ever. She said something to me once that has stuck with me all these years. She said, “I’m not pretty enough to wear makeup. I feel like if I do it will just make everyone look at me and think, ‘why is she even trying?'”

Again, back to the house analogy. Imagine that you live in a dumpy little house from the 70’s. It has no redeeming architectural features. It’s not old enough to be retro; it’s just plain ugly.  And it has a chain link fence across the weed-filled front yard.  Do you give up the day you move in and think, “there is just no hope for this house so why even bother?”  Or do you subscribe to some of the fantastic DIY blogs out there and get to work making your house as cute as possible?

Do you not agree that a fresh coat of paint, a picket fence and some petunias wouldn’t do wonders to start with?

Your face, even if you think it is nothing special, is worth fixing up. Lipstick alone does wonders. It brightens up your entire face and makes your teeth look whiter.

So my assignment for you this week is to wear some lipstick. If you haven’t bought a new liptsick in the last two years (or ever. My sister-in-law has never actually bought lipstick. She wears Clinique skin care products and only uses the free lipstick that comes in her Bonus bag that she gets every year. No matter what color it is.), get yourself to a store! Try the color out on your hand (but remember that everything will look pinker on your lips. I try to find a color that looks the same as my tongue.)

Nearly every makeup company makes a sheer, lipglossy-type product that is kind of like training wheels for lipstick. Since these are regular lipsticks (not long wearing-type things) they’ll wear off in a couple of hours. Which makes wearing this type of lipstick a lot less scary. The one that I’ve really been digging lately has been Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter.  It is so creamy and luscious. The colors are all really lovely and somewhat sheer. You won’t feel like your lips are a neon sign with these. I have “Brown Sugar”, a soft pinkish brown, and “Cherry Pie”, which makes it look like I’ve been sucking on a red popsicle.

I’ve also heard really great things about Cover Girl’s NatureLuxe  Gloss Balm. My friend Stephanie raves about the Peony color which is nice, clear pink (she’s blonde with fair skin).
Don’t be scared of makeup. It can be overwhelming, I know. But I will hold your hand. I wish I could go to the store with every one of you and help you find something that will make you feel so beautiful that you will look forward to being seen every day.

11 thoughts on “Lipstick, For People Who Don’t Use It

  1. I love make-up. I don’t really understand how to wear a lot of it, but I feel much prettier when I have it on. I love Sephora even though it scares me. (I do seem to have a talent for buying the same thing over and over again though – I’ll go to some store, buy a lip gloss I think is totally out of the box and new and exciting, get it home, and realize it’s the exact twin of every other lip gloss I’ve ever purchased.) Someday I will work up the nerve to ask for a make-up demonstration. I have a feeling I could be doing a lot more in the eye region on special occasions. And maybe someday I will work up the nerve to wear a bright lipstick color. I’m very oriented toward soft muted colors in my mouthal region. (And everywhere else for that matter.)

  2. I’m a gloss girl. But sometimes I do think about going back to lipstick. I don’t know. I guess the new formulations are less drying. Thanks for the informative post! You always make me laugh.

  3. I like the sheer effect of lipgloss but have grown to hate the sticky texture. My favorite for some time now has been Clinique’s Almost Lipstick in Black Honey. For the drug store alternative (half the price), I use L’Oreal Color Riche Balm in Plush Plum. I always freshen up my lipstick before a court hearing. It gives me (more) mojo!

    1. I think you’ll like both of the lipsticks I recommended. They’re not sticky like glosses at all. They feel really smooth and soft.

  4. I think I have neon-sign syndrome. Not only do I feel like it’s a neon-sign, but I think it actually is. XD I wear all the other makeup, but I don’t do lipstick very often. I think I look fake with it… (though there was the time when I was recovering from pink eye and didn’t want to risk contamination of my new mascara/eye-liner, so I wore a little bit of eye shadow and lipstick and thought the lipstick looked good. It was a “look at my lips not my eyes please” tactic).

  5. Love those Revlon lip butters. I have one called Berry and have been trying to track down the Coral one with no luck. They really do go on like lip balm!

    I found a great new lip gloss–L’Oreal Infallible 8 hour. Normally I hate gloss because 1) it’s sticky 2) my hair gets in it 3) it wears off so quickly. This new stuff isn’t any of those things and I really like it! Plus it has a nice applicator wand that is pointy on one end.

  6. Man is your blog ever hilarious!

    I stumbled upon it from Lisa’s blog at Pennington Press and have been laughing out loud at some of your posts!

    Good times, good times!

  7. Lipstick is the only makeup I wear besides a little dab of powder on the shiny nose area 🙂 MAC Viva Glam III is my all time favorite lipstick and I wish they sold it by the case.
    Burts Bees has nice lip tints too.

  8. My husband teases me about my obsession with wearing lipstick. Since I won’t leave the house without it — not even to get the mail — he’s surprised I don’t keep a tube by the bed.

    Anyway, I’ve been seeing these commercials for the Lip Butter and had wondered if it was any good. Now that I’ve read your review, I’m going to pick some up. I love a sheer wash of color in the summer, and these sound great.

  9. All you sweet young things! I must look like a painted Jezebel compared to you all! But, believe me, when I DISN’T wear a colorful lip color, people asked me if I was feeling well. HONEST!! Every time! It happened so often I started wearing 12 hour lipsticks like Cover Girl Outlast. They really worked, too! But eventually I got tired of the whole thing and had my lips tattooed my favorite rusty-plum. Now I never have to wear lipstick at all! I wake up looking lively and lovely (even if perhaps Jezebelly), and a swipe of gloss makes it look moist for hours.

    But then, I have dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and black eyebrows. Wearing no lipstick used to make me look like I only had a slot in my lower face. I’m sold on makeup! Especially the kind that never comes off.

  10. well i actually look much younger (and better, i think) without lipstick. i’m 29, and i rarely wear makeup, and if i do wear makeup, i usually just wear some lip balm. i just look better without lipstick. people guess my age around 21 (or the one really awesome person who thought i was 19), but if i wear lipstick? they usually guess around my age. if i do wear makeup (with is ab0out once a week if i’m honest) i’m good with a face powder, a light colored eyeliner if any, a neutral shimmery eyeshadow, and one coat of mascara. a pinch of blush. anything more ages me. so, just saying, makeup doesn’t necessarily work the same for everyone.

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