Red Lipstick is the “Power Pose” of Makeup
The first time I encountered red lipstick was at church. It adorned the lips of one of the most popular women in my late grandfather’s congregation and I knew I’d found my color. The only problem is the rhetoric that surrounded such a bold shade. You may or may not be familiar with them, or maybe you’ve pushed them to the deepest crevices of your memories. Nevertheless, I can hear whispers and bold declarations about red lipstick now:
“That shade is for “working women.” | Apparently it was blasphemous to say sex workers in the ‘90s.
“Women who wear red lipstick are no better than Jezebel.”
“No self-respecting woman would be caught wearing that.”
The list goes on and on, but I never stopped thinking about how its vibrancy.
What’s power posing and what does it have to do with red lipstick?
According to Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy, “power posing” is the art of invoking confidence even when we’re under the impression that unreachable. I’m serious — she has a TED Talk dedicated to it. I may be imaginative, but I can tell you that I wasn’t brilliant enough to come up with this on my own. But, how does it relate to red lipstick?
I recall seeing how it seemed to give its wearer an extra boost of confidence. For lack of better terms, it seemed like women who wore it automatically stepped into their full selves and didn’t really care who was or wasn’t on board with it. Despite how others felt about it, I secretly vowed that my first big girl purchase would be a tube of red lipstick.
Okay, spill the beans. What was your first purchase?
If you’ve been doing the math, you already know where I’m going with this. But for the sake of this article, I’ll tell you. [Deep breath] My first red lipstick buy was none other than MAC’s Ruby Woo.
Each time my mom & I visited Macy’s on weekends, I’d make a beeline for MAC while she looked at shoes. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about new footwear, but I wanted to look at Ruby Woo as many chances as I could because I knew I was going to own a tube one day. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t know a thing about adding lip liner to my lips before applying it, but I wasn’t thinking about that.
All I knew is that I was responsible for buying something that’d been on my wish list since I was a little girl. It was my first real “treat yourself” gift to myself and I wore it down to the point I had to use a hair pin to scrape out whatever was left.
Are you still wearing Ruby Woo?
It’s not that I’ve broken up with my first red lipstick, it’s just that I’ve discovered even more shades that are just as yummy. I’ve also since discovered how to make red lipstick brown girl-friendly because all shades aren’t created equal.
Because of my complexion, I always go look for red lipsticks that have a blue-red undertone. Even then, I often prefer to choose a shade that’s darker than something like Fenty Beauty’s Icon Velvet Liquid Lipstick to create an ombre effect.
My favorite lip combo consists of The Lip Bar’s Nonstop Liquid Matte lipstick in the shade ‘Mastermind’ and Fenty Beauty’s Icon Velvet Liquid Lipstick in the shade ‘The MVP.’ Ironically, I’d stopped wearing red lipstick for a while, but discovered this combination and haven’t looked back since. Here’s a fun little tutorial:
