The Classic Red
17:54This week, we were taking a look at our lipstick collections and stumbled across a severe lack of suitable reds for the both of us. Even though we had them, we found that what we thought was a simple red lipstick for a classic makeup look turned out to be much more complicated - with pink-based reds, orange-based reds, deep reds, bright reds, matte reds and reds with all different finishes!
And that doesn't even take into account how each of these works with every individual skin tone. Reds which worked for one of us didn't necessarily suit the other!
And so, we thought we would help you all out and post some swatches of our own reds on both of our skin tones so you could see how different they look and let us know which ones you like :)
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| With Flash: L to R: Bobbi Brown Rich Lip Colour in 42 - Watermelon, Lancôme L'Absolu Rouge in 173 - Preciosa, MAC Brave Red Cremesheen, Maybelline Colour Sensational in 547 - Pleasure Me Red, L'oreal Colour Riche in 297 - Red Passion |
From these pictures, you can see that Bobbi Brown Watermelon is a much lighter red with more orange tones, followed closely by L'oreal Red Passion. The Maybelline Pleasure Me Red gives a much shinier finish in the tube compared with both the MAC and Lancôme lipsticks which appear much deeper, with Lancome Preciosa photographing the darkest in the tube.
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| Top row: Teneeka - without flash and with Second row: Amy - without flash and with Lipsticks L to R: Bobbi Brown Rich Lip Colour in 42 - Watermelon, Lancôme L'Absolu Rouge in 173 - Preciosa, MAC Brave Red Cremesheen, Maybelline Colour Sensational in 547 - Pleasure Me Red, L'oreal Colour Riche in 297 - Red Passion |
One of the first things we noticed on our lipstick swatching adventures was that they often came out brighter on Teneeka's skin. Our general rule is that the paler your skin (and lips) the greater the colour payoff.
Bobbi Brown Rich Lip Colour in 42 - Watermelon
As expected, this red lipstick has more orange tones and swatches in both lighting types to show this, although it is more evident without flash. It glided on very easily but we found that it suited Teneeka's skintone which is lighter with yellow undertones and didn't work very well for Amy who has darker skin but still has yellow undertones.
Lancôme L'Abcolu Rouge in 173 - Preciosa
Although this lipstick photographed as a deep red in the tube, it swatches more like a dark pink with just one layer. From experience, we know that you can build this lipstick up with a thicker layer to get the red from the tube but can also gently tap it onto the lips for this pink colour. It didn't glide on as well as the others - perhaps indicative of needing a thicker layer for the correct colour payoff, but fades very nicely on wear and sits well on the lips! Unlike the other lipsticks, this one wasn't very tapered in the tube and had a much flatter and wider shape to begin with.
MAC Brave Red with Cremesheen finish
Another classic red from MAC which is unacceptably overshadowed by it's MAC red siblings (looking at you Russian Red and Lady Danger!!). We felt that this is a slightly brighter red with pink undertones and thought that it worked better with Amy's skintone but was still a statement red with Teneeka's.
Maybelline Colour Sensational in 547 - Pleasure Me Red
This lipstick certainly lives up to it's promise of an intense lip colour! It swatches very well and applies nicely with a single swipe as well as having a gorgeous shine to it in the tube (we spent a very long time admiring that shine >.>). This is the deepest red that we swatched despite it not looking like that in the tube at all! When worn on Amy's lips, it masked her natural lip colour and came out as a bright true red.
L'oreal Color Riche in 297 - Red Passion
Unexpectedly, this had some micro glitter in the tube but swatches pretty similar shimmer wise to the other lipsticks without the glitter. We suspect that there would be more of a difference between them all with more coats and that Red Passion would be the most shimmery. When we applied the lipstick, we found that the glitter particles could be seen a lot more clearly after a few hours of wear.
So which one of these reds would you go for?
Would you like to see these swatched onto our lips? If so, let us know! (And yes, I am proud that rhymed)
- The Mai Sisters x
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