Kiss of approval
This lipstick is so good it might make you care about lipstick again
As a beauty editor, you know something is really good when people keep asking if, just by chance, you might have an extra bottle or tube lying around in the beauty closet. YSL’s Touché Éclat is a popular request, as are Nars blush and Dior perfume. In the lipstick category, one name comes up more than any other: Charlotte Tilbury. It doesn’t matter if it’s a glossy glamazon in a full face or a subdued minimalist who barely wears makeup, everyone wants Charlotte. I, in turn, get to feel like Santa squeezing down the chimney every time I hand out one of the coveted tubes.
I get it. Tilbury’s formulas get everything right. Texture, finish, wear; all of it perfect. And the colours: balanced, sumptuous shades designed to flatter, not shock. Because Tilbury isn’t so much interested in trends or statements as she is in making women feel amazing. It’s why Kate Moss and Amal Clooney asked her to do their makeup on their wedding days and why women over the world carry CT-engraved tubes in their handbag.
Or used to, anyway. Makeup (and even handbags, for that matter) can feel somewhat obsolete in this new lockdown reality. But lipstick in particular has been hard hit. Ironic considering lipstick sales have traditionally gone up in times of turmoil. It’s a concept called the “lipstick index,” coined by former Estée Lauder chair Leonard Lauder in the wake of the early 2000s recession. The theory posits that women view lipstick as an affordable luxury, so when money is tight and bigger purchases fall out of reach they buy lipstick instead.
Not the case during COVID 19. For a lot of women, working from home would be reason enough to skip lipstick, but add mandatory face coverings to the equation and really, why would anyone bother? Tracking Amazon sales in the early stages of the pandemic, management consulting firm McKinsey found lip care and colour saw the steepest decline of all beauty and grooming categories.
Save for a bored, midday swipe every few weeks (“I just want to feel alive,” I declare dramatically, exiting the bathroom with a crimson pout, sweatpants riddled with holes, topknot askew), I’ve largely forsaken all lip colour. That is until a certain star-adorned tube came into my life. Who other than Charlotte Tilbury herself to get me excited about lipstick again?
In typical Tilbury fashion, it bears a most flowery moniker: Hyaluronic Happikiss Lipstick Balm. It is a hybrid formula, as the name suggests, part lipstick, part balm and, I would add, part gloss. It extracts the best of all three — pigment, comfort and shine — and swirls it into one immaculate product.
In my experience, tinted balms, though lovely, have a tendency to slip and slide. Happikiss is different. It bathes lips in moisture (a big thank you to hyaluronic acid) yet presents enough grip to stay put. The colour payoff is also remarkable and the finish incredibly forgiving. Though striking, supermatte lippies usually require a strong supporting cast for best results. The skin needs to be luminous, the eyes bright and awake. This guy looks as good on a bare face as it does with a full beat.
My favourite part, however, is the way it makes any sign of chapping or cracking vanish before your eyes. Just like that, your lips, even if it appears you’ve taken a cheese grater to them (apologies for the gory visual), look juicy and smooth. Why Tilbury, high priestess of all things “magic” (Magic Cream, Magic Serum, Magic Foundation), omitted the adjective here is beyond me.
Currently, the shade Pillow Talk, another hallmark of the Tilbury universe, sits in my handbag. I’m not sure why I keep it there considering I don’t actually go anywhere and when I do leave the house, never does an occasion present itself where I’m compelled to reapply a lip. I take it as a sign of its superiority: it’s so good it triggers pre-pandemic behaviour. Every morning, I open the purse and fish out the tube. It makes my lips feel amazing — cushy, hydrated, non-cheesegrated — and it makes me feel amazing. More than amazing, actually: alive. Life is short. I say, wear the damn lipstick.