Best of Beauty: Fall Lip Colours … Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Love the mulberry-hued lip look for fall? These five pigment-packed products—and tips from a NARS stylist on how to wear them—instantly modernize your mouth.
Carrying off a bold mulberry lip may not be for the faint of heart, but it isn’t a look reserved strictly for makeup daredevils, either. The secret to getting it right lies in the products you choose, says Niko Lopez, NARS makeup stylist. “When working with deep purples, it’s important to keep the look sharp and bold. You do that by finding a lipstick with a matching (or one shade darker) lipliner to make the look more defined and, in turn, the feature becomes more of a focal point.”
Here are Lopez’s tips for making a purple pucker work for you.
Prepare your canvas.
The most important step in ensuring your bold lips look flawless is exfoliation. To get a soft, supple surface—and help colour go on perfectly—rub lips with a gentle exfoliator for one to two minutes, rinse, and then apply a product with moisturising benefits, such as NARS Pure Sheer SPF Lip Treatment, says Lopez.
Find your ideal shade.
Generally speaking, you want to avoid any shades of purple that are too brown or too blue. Fair skin looks great with brighter shades of plum, while medium skin tones are most flattered by deep violets. For darker skin, Lopez recommends using the darkest, most concentrated shades of purple available to make the look pop.
Application matters.
For light and medium skin tones, apply lipliner to the outer edges of each lip, starting in the corners and moving inward toward their centre. Leave the inside portion of lips liner-free and fill them in with your lipstick or gloss. For darker skin, Lopez recommends lining lips lightly with NARS Eyeliner Pencil in Black Moon—a trick he picked up from François Nars himself—and filling in the rest of the area with NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Train Bleu.
Balance your look.
When making lips your beauty focal point, it’s important to keep eye and face makeup minimal, says Lopez. “Adding a fresh, dewy glow is a great way to balance the look, and a soft, rose-toned blush will work to complement most skin tones,” he says.
