As you know, I am obsessed with red lipstick. (I currently have about 14 tubes, glosses and pots of the stuff in my makeup drawer.) I AM ALWAYS on the look out for the perfect red lipstick! It’s always a hard thing to find the universal red lipstick: a red lip color for Asian skin, red lip color for olive skin tones, that also works well for pale skin and African-American complexions.
Considering that I have one of the hardest skin tones to shop for (medium brown with very golden yellow undertone–not exactly olive, but not exactly traditional “Asian” skin color either), most of the beauty column advice about brick reds for olive tones and yellows and blue reds for pink or beige complected beauties does not apply to me. I’m not olive or too tan, but I’m not light-skinned yellow, either, and I’m SO NOT beige. All the lipsticks I wear are either too bricky/orangey or too dark with a slight bluish undertone to it, which makes me ashy and sallow. It’s like, DAMN! makeup people, can’t you think of the million or so Southeast Asian women who just wanna look hot and kissable? A girl can’t get no satisfaction. Damn Europeans.
After logging thousands of hours in Sephora, Ulta and Nordstrom, swatching about a million shades, getting bad beauty advice and trying it myself for years and years, last Friday I ran into Stacey a NARS Makeup Artist. Um, she’s magic. She found my perfect red in less than twenty minutes. WHAT!
{Mac Ruby Woo, the universally perfect red lipstick for every skin tone.}
According to
Real Beauty.com, the most universally flattering shade of red lipstick is Ruby Woo. These girls didn’t mess around. They tested and vetted hundreds of lip colors, and had women of all colours and races try it on, and indeed! the shade IS flattering on every woman who wears it. Peep the slide show, it is the
perfect red for all skin tones.
Review:
It’s a matte red in a long wearing formula. There’s no hint of blue or orange in the undertones. It’s just a perfect true red shade. The hue is absolutely brilliant and bold, so if you’re not used to it, you may need to blot it like crazy to get more of a stain. Or, to tone it down a notch, you can darken it by using a moisturizing brown eye or lip liner pencil and kind of create a gradient so the brightest pop is just at the center of the mouth. This effect also makes your lips appear more pouty and fuller. The long wearing formula is drying, though. So remember to moisturize your lips a bit with lip balm and again after. Or top the lippie with a moisturizing gloss. My preference is Burt’s Bee’s tinted lip balm in Red Dahlia. My lips are already too full for gloss, I’d look like a drag queen if I went glossy.
I’m relieved I found my HG (Holy Grail) red. But if I had to choose a close second, YSL’s Rouge Pur in Opium Red, but that’s been discontinued. And, at $14.50, I’ll just go to MAC every time. I’m usually anti-MAC, because I can never come out of there without looking like RuPaul, but I think their brushes and this lipstick can change my mind a little.
What’s your Holy Grail lip shade? Need help finding a good red for your skin tone? I can help!
BUY IT HERE: MAC Ruby Woo @ Nordstrom.com
Image credit: Real Beauty
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