The new normal – business meetings, family get-togethers and tribe parties on Zoom – needs a new makeup must-have: vibrant video-friendly lipsticks that enhance your real-time onscreen looks, by daylight or night shade. It’s time to switch these colours on.
Lipsticks in a time of SHN, WFH and masking up? What’s the deal?
With everyone staying connected, engaging and congregating via video, the ante on looking sharp every day has, in fact, been raised. Keeping up appearances onscreen, without the benefit of a self-editing photo app or flattering filter can be fairly scary, as it’s new territory for most of us who don’t work in entertainment.
We now have to consider which makeup colours pop on video, yet look professional in natural light for that 9am production meeting? What’s appropriate for a virtual birthday dinner, where real food and tipple will be involved? How do you dress your lips for a long night of music with friends you haven’t caught up with in months? It’s like being on TV every day! Like it or not, we’re now all stars in our very own reality video ‘shows’.
The game plan is to keep it uncomplicated. Have your basics down pat – presentable hair, good foundation, and groomed, defined brows, then top it all off with an icing-on-the-cake lipstick shade that leaves a true lasting impression. Lucky for you, this season’s new lipstick launches cover all the bases and will still work when the masks come off.
Daily Lips
Chanel’s Rouge Coco Flash, as its name suggests, instantly perks up your face in the flesh and on screen. This day-to-night, work-to-play formula is equal parts vibrant colour, shine and pure comfort. It’s the perfect meeting and catch-up lipstick, because while pigments stay true through the hours of conferencing, the emollients offer a level of ease that makes you feel you’re not even wearing lipstick. All 27 chic shades – of nudes, oranges, reds, pinks, rosewoods, fuchsias, plums and chocolates – are refreshingly different, you’ll be tempted to get them all, one for almost every day of the month.
Date Night Romance
If you live apart from your significant other, Armani Beauty’s Lip Maestro, reaffirmed in the newest Terra Nature Lip Maestro collection, is surely a silver lining to brighten up the separation anxiety. Have Zoom will still connect, and when you’re planning a cosy, romantic catch-up with your better half in the evening, when work is done, post quick dinner, don’t forget to put on this lipstick. It comes in 4 uniquely luminous earthy shades in warm natural tones that flatter every skin tone and complexion. Pigments in this formula play off all lighting, especially soft, mood lighting, allowing it to bounce off flatteringly. They don’t nickname this little wonder lipstick a cinematic beauty for nothing. While most matte lipsticks are flat and often dry-looking on lips, Armani Beauty’s Lip Maestro offers a vivid yet soft effect and a revolutionary backlit glow on the lips. The better to make parting such sweet sorrow.
Work Heroes
We like wide-awake colours for business meetings, especially when we’re chairing them; colours that give us a sense of empowerment and a glow, because now we’re not just chairing them, but presiding over meetings on screen. shu uemura’s Rouge Unlimited Amplified Matte is the lipstick version of a double espresso, with intense pigments that pop on video, and are long-wearing to withstand the many sips of the actual espresso beverage. In creamy and matt versions, all shades are moisturising, classic yet modern.
If you don’t like the oom-pa-pa of bright red hues, because your work style is just more understated, Rouge Hermès will work for you with equal parts translucence and shine; an elegant sort of shine, mind you, subtle, well-mannered and proper.
Video Party Poppers
The clubs and restos may have closed for now, but every day, virtually everyone is having a party or gathering of some sort, thanks to technology. We’re talking music and dance parties with actual DJs spinning, people boogying in their living rooms, families and friends celebrating every sort of occasion, from birthdays to anniversaries, over food and champers. It’s like a dream come true for every one of us who has always wanted to be part of a reality TV show. The connections we’ve all continued to make are unprecedented, and so the protocol goes that we too must still look the part.
For drinks and dancing, we like YSL Rouge Volupté, the rock star cult lipstick that offers unsurpassed shimmer and glitter in 16 hot shades inspired by the music world. There are currently 4 exclusive, collectible limited edition shades and 6 just-launched colours. For extra party glow, make sure you put on some Rouge Volupté Shine before you press video on and say hello world. Seven shades available for this.
Big food-related gatherings and celebrations on screen, however, require hyper-lipsticks from the Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy Sculpting range, and fun picks from Dior Rouge Ultra Rouge.
Estée Lauder’s Pure Color Envy Sculpting Lipsticks are conversation starters in themselves – this triple threat collection shapes lips, provides intense colour and even treats, hydrates and nourishes your pair.
Dior Rouge Ultra Rouge in 26 deep hues of exuberant pinks and hyped-up oranges will add a pop of photogenic colour to the gallery of thumbnail video screen grabs (great for later-grams), has staying power, just in case chilli crab is on Dad’s birthday celebration menu, is weightless and comfy to wear. And if you just want to get the rellies or your friends talking, try Dior Rouge Ultra Rouge in Ultra Night 47, a creamy black shade that will blend perfectly with port and squid ink pasta sauce, or Ultra Light 47, a white as whipped cream shade for some unexpected onscreen presence.
Images courtesy of respective brands featured, artwork by Curatedition. All rights reserved.
Related links:
shu uemura Rouge Unlimited Amplified: Full Saturation
Giorgio Armani Beauty: Haute Couture Makeup
