The Elusive Red Lip

I am not a lipstick kinda gal. All the lipsticks I own have been gifts or part of some kit I had purchased - all except two - one I thought matched the colour of my top lip, and the other a bright red.

I purchased those two because I thought they would have looked lovely on my skin tone. I have long since given up on a pinky/berry coloured lipstick for every day wear- maybe one day Ill take up that hunt again. However now I am obsessed with getting the perfect red lip. And even now, that has completely eluded me.

I have the true black woman's dilemma - very pigmented lips, with two different tones for upper and bottom lips. I can never tell what is going to look good on me because one shade looks completely different on each lip. On top of this now, I have really pout-y lips so lipstick rubs off in the space of a millisecond.

Some time this year - probably April thereabout, I was going through a friend's makeup bag and swatching everything in there like crazy. She had a particular lip colour in there and curious as always i swatched it on the side of my hand (where the back turns into your palm because for some reason i figure if it looks good there it will look good on my two-toned lips - stellar reasoning right?). Five hours later it was still there and even though I rubbed it like crazy it WOULD NOT even budge.

Now I know these ads say that the color wont smudge and lasts for hours and hours but let's be honest. How much of that is actually true? So i drove - yes drove - didn't call her- to my friends house and demanded that she tell me what product it was and where she had copped it.

Twas the Loreal Infallible Lip Colour and it looks like this:

I am now searching for a store that has samples that will let me try these (on the side of my hand of course) so I can know which shade is the right one for me. I'm gonna go out on the limb with the red colour first and if i like it then I will definitely go after a more neutral shade that I can wear to work to help me look more polished. Or maybe I should do it the other way around....hmmm. Well if i buy the neutral first and it's not my shade ill be discouraged and not the buy red..ill let y'all know how it turns out. In the meantime I'm dreaming up outfits to sport my red lips with. I'm thinking cobalt shoes, dark grey skinnies, a cream silk shirt and a black  or charcoal faux leather jacket with either delicate gold jewellery or chunky dark jewellery with probably a greige envelope clutch and nude nails with tons of mascara, wavy hair in a ponytail with a centre part of course.  Lol, see how easy it is to plan an outfit around one single detail?

The idea is to get classic simple pieces and mesh them together with one style theme in mind. But more on that later. I promise to do a post on that this week. In the meantime, it's off to find the perfect red lip colour for my skin tone (both of them lol)

Till next time, bonjour!