Beauty Fix: A lipstick that shows up bright no matter your natural lip colour and more answers to your beauty questions
Every week we take on your questions about makeup, skincare, hair and more and provide all the answers. This week we’re helping solve your questions about colour cosmetics. We share our top eyeshadow pick for brown eyes, a trick for keeping your lipstick from bleeding beyond your lip line and reveal the colour of lipstick Jessica Alba wore on the Golden Globes red carpet! Speaking of lipstick, if you’re interested in a bright lip colour that works well on darker skin tones, read on. Have a question we haven’t answered? Email us at [email protected].
I have brown eyes and like to stick to warm neutrals, but I’m ready to mix up my colour palette. Suggestions for which direction on the colour wheel I should move towards?
While warm neutrals are flattering to virtually every eye colour, you can probably make your brown eyes stand out even more by opting for cool-toned colours with the occasional warm-toned accent. A fantastic set to get you going on your new colour path is Benefit World Famous Neutrals in “Sexiest Neutrals Ever” ($36, sephora.com). This palette contains six eyeshadows to mix and match for a whole new world of options: There are two potted creaseless cream shadows (light oyster-pink shade and a charcoal shade) that can be worn alone or as bases to anchor the remaining four powder shadows (shimmery-white, silver, lilac and a mid-tone purple). The set also comes with “daytime” and “playtime” tips, which are always a great jumping-off point for your own experimentation with these colours.
I have dark pigmentation in my lips and find that bright lipsticks never really have enough colour payoff to counteract my natural lip colour. Is there a formula that can be true to the colour in the tube, even on me?
I can’t even begin to express how much I empathize with anyone who has pigmented lips. It’s a very small but very real frustration to reach for an insanely bright pink lipstick, swipe it on and realize that it reads more so as a weird variation of purple than pink due to lip pigmentation. It makes hunting for bright lip products a serious challenge, because swatching a lip product prior to purchasing provides so little confidence in the lip color unless it’s applied directly to the mouth. However, great news: The search can end happily, now that Maybelline’s Color Sensational Vivids lip colour range ($10, at drugstores, shown in “Vivid Rose”) is available. This lipstick has particle technology that ensures saturated, bright pigments sit on the surface of the skin when applied so that the final colour payoff is bold. The formula is extremely comfortable on the lips, so don’t shelf the intense lipstick till spring actually arrives—brighten up now!
What can I use to get the look that Jessica Alba sported at the Golden Globes?
Jessica Alba was an absolute vision in tangerine at this year’s Golden Globes Awards, and her makeup was extremely complementary to her dress and jewels. The trick to her makeup was that her eyes were quite understated and the lip colour stayed in the same colour family as her dress. Want to try this fresh beauty look? Here’s how: contour the face lightly with a matte bronzer and a duo-fibre brush, avoiding harsh lines and blending thoroughly. Apply a cream cheek colour, like Kevyn Aucoin The Creamy Moist Glow in “Tansoleil” ($27, ebeauty.ca), a soft peach shade, to the cheeks. Start with a small amount of product, as it’s always easier to add colour than it is to take it away. Line the top lids with a black pencil liner, then use an angled eye brush to smudge the liner upwards on the outer corners of the eyes, and finish with mascara. Finally, apply Hourglass Opaque Rouge lipstick in “Riviera” ($33, sephora.com) to lips, which is the exact matte tangerine shade that Jessica Alba sported on the red carpet.
I’ve been noticing my lipstick feathers beyond my lip line, which makes me pretty apprehensive about wearing anything on my lips aside from lip balm. How can I prevent this?
Surely this is a scene we’ve all been in at one point or another. Apply a lip colour in the morning and by mid-afternoon, you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and are taken aback by how far the colour has migrated well away from where it began. Needless to say, this scenario is less than ideal, but rest assured that it’s also entirely fixable! All you need is a lip liner. Now, don’t be scared! Often, we think of lip liner and the term alone invokes really awful memories of the ‘90s trend of visible lip liner, but the type you’ll be reaching for is entirely invisible. Grab a pencil like No Bleeding Lips Secret Invisible Lip Liner ($15, at Shoppers Drug Mart), which is a silicone-based, colourless lip liner that is actually applied to the outside of the lip line in order to create a barrier to contain the lip colour you wear, be it gloss or stick. See? No need to swear off the fun, colourful stuff!
I have broken capillaries around my nose, so what’s a good product to use to cover them up?
Most people tend to have redness or discolouration of some sort throughout their faces, with broken capillaries around the nose being quite common. If you’re a spot-concealing type of person who doesn’t need much coverage elsewhere, try Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage ($35, sephora.com) to address the features you’d like to cover. The product contains two pigmented concealer colours; one to match the skintone and another to match the undertone of the skin, which allows you to customize the colour of the concealer. This is particularly appealing because different areas of the face require different levels of coverage and different shade depths to properly conceal imperfections. When mixing the colours, use the back of your hand as a mixing palette and warm the product up with your fingers. Tap it onto the broken capillaries to conceal, setting with a translucent powder to finish.
. This palette contains six eyeshadows to mix and match for a whole new world of options: There are two potted creaseless cream shadows (light oyster-pink shade and a charcoal shade) that can be worn alone or as bases to anchor the remaining four powder shadows (shimmery-white, silver, lilac and a mid-tone purple). The set also comes with “daytime” and “playtime” tips, which are always a great jumping-off point for your own experimentation with these colours.
I have dark pigmentation in my lips and find that bright lipsticks never really have enough colour payoff to counteract my natural lip colour. Is there a formula that can be true to the colour in the tube, even on me?
I can’t even begin to express how much I empathize with anyone who has pigmented lips. It’s a very small but very real frustration to reach for an insanely bright pink lipstick, swipe it on and realize that it reads more so as a weird variation of purple than pink due to lip pigmentation. It makes hunting for bright lip products a serious challenge, because swatching a lip product prior to purchasing provides so little confidence in the lip color unless it’s applied directly to the mouth. However, great news: The search can end happily, now that Maybelline’s Color Sensational Vivids lip colour range ($10, at drugstores, shown in “Vivid Rose”) is available. This lipstick has particle technology that ensures saturated, bright pigments sit on the surface of the skin when applied so that the final colour payoff is bold. The formula is extremely comfortable on the lips, so don’t shelf the intense lipstick till spring actually arrives—brighten up now!
What can I use to get the look that Jessica Alba sported at the Golden Globes?
Jessica Alba was an absolute vision in tangerine at this year’s Golden Globes Awards, and her makeup was extremely complementary to her dress and jewels. The trick to her makeup was that her eyes were quite understated and the lip colour stayed in the same colour family as her dress. Want to try this fresh beauty look? Here's how: contour the face lightly with a matte bronzer and a duo-fibre brush, avoiding harsh lines and blending thoroughly. Apply a cream cheek colour, like Kevyn Aucoin The Creamy Moist Glow in “Tansoleil” ($27, ebeauty.ca), a soft peach shade, to the cheeks. Start with a small amount of product, as it’s always easier to add colour than it is to take it away. Line the top lids with a black pencil liner, then use an angled eye brush to smudge the liner upwards on the outer corners of the eyes, and finish with mascara. Finally, apply Hourglass Opaque Rouge lipstick in “Riviera” ($33, sephora.com) to lips, which is the exact matte tangerine shade that Jessica Alba sported on the red carpet.
I’ve been noticing my lipstick feathers beyond my lip line, which makes me pretty apprehensive about wearing anything on my lips aside from lip balm. How can I prevent this?
Surely this is a scene we’ve all been in at one point or another. Apply a lip colour in the morning and by mid-afternoon, you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and are taken aback by how far the colour has migrated well away from where it began. Needless to say, this scenario is less than ideal, but rest assured that it’s also entirely fixable! All you need is a lip liner. Now, don’t be scared! Often, we think of lip liner and the term alone invokes really awful memories of the ‘90s trend of visible lip liner, but the type you’ll be reaching for is entirely invisible. Grab a pencil like No Bleeding Lips Secret Invisible Lip Liner ($15, at Shoppers Drug Mart), which is a silicone-based, colourless lip liner that is actually applied to the outside of the lip line in order to create a barrier to contain the lip colour you wear, be it gloss or stick. See? No need to swear off the fun, colourful stuff!
I have broken capillaries around my nose, so what’s a good product to use to cover them up?
Most people tend to have redness or discolouration of some sort throughout their faces, with broken capillaries around the nose being quite common. If you’re a spot-concealing type of person who doesn’t need much coverage elsewhere, try Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage ($35, sephora.com) to address the features you’d like to cover. The product contains two pigmented concealer colours; one to match the skintone and another to match the undertone of the skin, which allows you to customize the colour of the concealer. This is particularly appealing because different areas of the face require different levels of coverage and different shade depths to properly conceal imperfections. When mixing the colours, use the back of your hand as a mixing palette and warm the product up with your fingers. Tap it onto the broken capillaries to conceal, setting with a translucent powder to finish.
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