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Warning. What follows is rather girly, and more than a little insipid.
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As anyone who is familiar with Plato’s Theory of Forms, the idea of something is often better than the reality. An item of deep importance to me that I have been searching for much of my life is the perfect red lipstick.
This obsession may surprise some that see me come into the office every day as my appearance (especially recently given that dawn isn’t until 7:30 at the mo) is haphazard at best. I don’t wear a lot of make-up. . . I wear it, but I try to look as natural as possible. Base, a touch of blush, neutral eye shadow, maybe some liquid eyeliner if I can be assed, maybe mascara (but usually not since my lashes are so dark). My one slightly dramatic thing is my lipstick, which usually wears away completely my 2nd cup of coffee.
I’ve had this lipstick problem for a number of years now, which has resulted in my buying many tubes that are rather similar to the other and they end up piling up in a drawer with only a few in heavy rotation. The worst is when you find one that you love and then the bastards stop making it.
Since I’ve moved here, I’ve controlled this shopping habit. I’m not sure why. I have a few old standbys that I have been leaning on so I’ve forced myself to be good.
For evening I currently like Revlon’s Classic Red, but it isn’t as blue a red as I want. I want a 1950’s stop traffic deep red. The closest I’ve gotten was made by Elizabeth Arden, the name of it I can’t recall. I managed to misplace it somehow. I’m sure one of these days I’ll open up an evening bag I haven’t used for a while and I will once again be reunited.
A red lipstick of this sort is not appropriate for the daytime however. My favourite current daytime red is from Origins and has the very sexy name, ‘Service With A Smile.’ I am nearly out, so today I decided to schlep up to the Origins store near Seven Dials to prevent this eventuality.
Horror of horrors, the UK stores are not carrying lipsticks at the moment! Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll break out a lip brush and I will scrape the last bit of whatever lipstick is made of out of ‘Service With A Smile’. I’ll have to stock up when I go back to LA. If they still make it. . . I can’t find it on the US Web site.
Oh well. There’s lots of lipsticks in the sea. . .
Like an idiot, when I heard that Origins was sans lipstick, I chose to wander around the store and spent 60 quid anyway.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Lipstick is something I wonder about often. (Pause for laugher) What makes a woman whose heritage is obviously southern European think the obvious compliment to her olive skin, deep brown hair, and unsightly upper lip is the color of strawberry milk? If you have a hairy upper lip shouldn’t you be trying to attract less attention to it? Pink is not the color for you.
Also was the only color lipstick available in the former Soviet Block countries orange? Ladies you are in American now. You have the freedom to choose the shade that perfectly compliments your season and I can assure you that color isn’t orange.