Lipstick is probably the most popular, most familiar member of the makeup family.  I mean, think about it.  Your brother or boyfriend might make all those lame jokes about not knowing what mascara is, or they act like they don’t know what you’re talking about when you mention foundation (and I submit that they are all liars and most guys actually could pass a basic makeup identification test if needed; they just needlessly feign ignorance for fear of looking less than ‘dude’), but every person on the planet knows what lipstick is.  Without question.  I’d venture a guess that most any person, in any country, anywhere, would know exactly what to do with that bright red bullet in a Revlon tube.  Now, how many of those red bullets we come across in a lifetime will vary from person to person, but generally speaking, lipstick is a globally known thing.

Which is why I think it’s so well loved.  Some form of lip rouge has been around forever, and it seems that every year there is some new shade, some new formula that the public goes absolutely nuts for.  MAC has their annual Viva Glam lipstick shade that always debuts with great anticipation.  People go on rabid Google searches for a certain lip color seen on a celebrity, causing it to sell out everywhere.  New long-wear formulas like Stila’s Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick and Kat Von D’s Everlasting Liquid Lipstick have introduced a cult-like frenzy, garnering the praises of countless beauty bloggers and Instagram-ers.  The new trend of blue, lavender, and pink hair has seemed to inspire a breaking of boundaries in lip color as well with shades of deep purple and dark blue showing up on both the runways and on the streets.

You don’t just buy your friend one shade of lipstick for her birthday; you buy her four.  Many women don’t merely purchase one shade of lip color in a formula they love; they purchase multiples, if not the whole line.  We seem to treat lipstick like candy.  We want every flavor, every kind.  I believe if we could eat lipstick, we would.  And while this strikes me ultimately as bizarre and animalistic, I admit that I’m part of all this.  I’ve never seemed to develop a loyalty toward one brand or one formula, but I can certainly play the game.  And I would definitely eat MAC’s Candy Yum-Yum if I could.

I have two lipsticks that are inspiring me for the moment.  One you could consider an easy, wear-everyday-if-you-wanted kind of color, and the other could be taken as your way to play with this fall’s trends.

Too Faced has had this line of Melted Liquified Long Wear Lipstick for a couple years, and I’d avoided them until now because anything with the words “long wear” tends to really scare me and make my lips turn reptilian.  I harken back to my high school days when CoverGirl first introduced Outlast All Day Lip Color, and I remember feeling like I was literally painting cement on my lips with the comfort and ease of a brillo pad.  That first go round at long-lasting lipstick was god awful, truly.  I mean, how dry does something have to be to the point where they feel the need to include another product with it, a “moisturizing topcoat”?!  Lord, no.  And does anyone remember trying to remove that stuff?  Might as well have used paint stripper!

But I feel that such formulas have improved over the years in comfort and practicality, with Too Faced having introduced one improved version.  I can’t say that the shine lasts especially long, but the feel of ‘Melted’ is very pillowy and buttery.  My lips appeared fuller as well, a result of glossy, light reflecting properties.  I purchased this in a shade called “Melted Chihuahua” (insert mental picture of the Taco Bell dog being thrown into a volcano here), and it’s an easy color for everyday, a warm, nude-ish rose that’s “my lips but better”.  The highly saturated pigment did linger for quite a while (through morning coffee, church, and brunch more or less), and the scent is tart and sweet.  I would love to go for a full-on vampy look with the dark, purple-blue Melted Villain shade, but I’m playing it slightly safer when it comes to this fall’s deep berry trend.

Which brings me to the nearly-black bullet pictured beside the Too Faced.  Revlon has a number of lipstick shades that have become cult classics over the decades.  You’ve got Fire And Ice, Love That Red, and the color pictured here, Black Cherry.  And no, the color doesn’t swatch as black but rather as a deep plum-berry stain.   I love this color.  I really, really love it.  Darker colors do make your lips appear smaller, but I don’t mind.  I like it when lips show a merlot tinge after a couple glasses, and I like how lips show all of their cracks and crevices when stained.  I actually don’t prefer perfectly smooth, plump lips- there’s not as much character in that look for me.  Even Angelina Jolie’s full lips have a lot of crevices and irregularities about them.  So anyhow, the Black Cherry is a fun find.  And for less than ten bucks at Walgreen’s, it’s nice to save a trip to Sephora and some cash that would otherwise have been blown on a lipstick I won’t wear super often.

Pictured here- Black Cherry while out and about in the Midwest suburbs of Illinois.  Maybe the city will provide a better opportunity- I’ve always wanted to look like a wicked city woman (though I’m about as intimidating as a bulldog puppy).  xo, MR