I stick pretty much to nude and neutral lip colours, and if truth be known, my daily lip coverage amounts to no more than the very lightly tinted orange Lanolips. If I do move to something with more coverage, it’s usually a Bobbi Brown neutral lipgloss. At a major push, I can do a particular Dior semi-opaque orange.

I got into a conversation with a lovely make-up artist friend on Friday who said, “you’d look really good in a bright red lipstick; why don’t you wear more colour?” I took him back to the day that I wore a beautiful Clinique red lipstick down Oxford Street and got past about six shops before I had to run into Debenhams and wash it off. People look. Like, they really, really look at your face when your lips are wow red. And I didn’t like it at all. 

Which is really odd. Because I don’t mind in the least vamping up my eyes with black kohl til they’re literally overflowing or wearing black eye-shadow or even black kohl with black shadow and then some…and I am not in the least shy I don’t think, so what is this thing with red lipstick. Why can’t I do it? Does anyone else have this problem? I look at women in the street or at meetings absolutely rocking out a red lip, but yet the minute I do it myself I am crippled with self consciousness… 

Anyway, when I got home from talking with Daniel, I decided I was going to try again in the privacy of my own home, so I put on the newest Isadora red.. it’s verrryyyy red. And yes, it looks great – he is right. But by the time it came to going out to dinner with friends I had to take it right down to just a stain with gloss over it.

Help! 

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