The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Beauty brains/the manual
Zoom-proof lipsticks; scalp-friendly scrubs
Face masks may have put paid to that old adage about lipstick being one of the most resilient commodities on earth. In 2020, lipsticks were roundly trounced by skincare. That’s a positive – a pop of colour can only be enhanced by good skin.
I have faith lipsticks will bounce back. Aesthetically, there’s no faster pick-me-up. Thirty seconds to get on Zoom? Brush some powder on to your eyebrows and sweep some colour across your lips. Foundation? Hardly ever apply it these days. Mascara? That was once my desert-island firstaid choice, and while it would still come high on the list, for instant gratification, lipstick is higher. No need to fuss around with precision tools for the lippie: just blot it on. At the moment, I prefer matt to gloss, which can pick up the light strangely on screen. If I want a bit of sheen, I’d rather use a lip balm on top or underneath.
The nude taupes don’t really show up on screen. On a walk in the park, in dull weather or sunny, a shot of red is hard to beat. It tells the world you haven’t given up and in its micro way, encourages others not to give up either. For a dopamine surge, avoid wines, beige, browns or plums, which can be ageing. Instead try a red with a hit of orange in it (RMS’S organic Wild With Desire in Rebound); a coral (Kjaer Weis’s organic Lip Tint in Sweetness); peach, a shade I resisted for years but now appreciate as youthefying (No 7’s Sheer Temptation in Coral Peach); a rose-pink (Chanel’s Rouge Coco Flash in Boy); a so-bright-it’s-almostpunk bubblegum pink with nary a hint of Barbie in it (Mac’s Saint Germain); or an actual orange (Tom Ford’s Lips & Boys in Connor). If you have a steady hand, you could match (Revlon does sets) or clash a nail polish. Try Revlon’s emerald green, Posh (£6.49, amazon.co.uk), with a pink or orange lipstick, or Ciaté’s navy blue, What the Shell (£6, ciatelondon.com), with peach. The effects don’t have to be perfect, as long as they please you – you’ll be the main person seeing the results, hundreds of times a day. Micro pleasure, macro impact.