RED LIPSTICK WEATHER

Oct 15

Red Lipstick Weather

Every autumn brings back my appetite for glamour, and with it, a red mouth.

I lean into the mirror, lipstick in hand, and begin at the bow. Slow strokes, a pause to inspect the corners, then another pass to deepen the color. By the time I blot, the tissue holds a red impression of my mouth and I am already thinking about what to wear with it. This happens every fall, when the air cools and my appetite for glamour returns, along with the unreasonable conviction that I might become someone new by October.

I am a September baby, and I loved school, so autumn has always felt like the beginning of the year to me. There was such pleasure in starting again, in imagining that the girl who returned might be different from the one who had left in June. I still feel it when the weather turns, though the possibilities have changed. These days I am less interested in reinventing myself entirely than in seeing what a familiar face might look like with a fabulous red lip.

For a girl who loved vintage fashion magazines and old films, red was an early glimpse of the sort of womanhood I hoped to grow into. Ava Gardner’s beauty had something almost unsettling about it, while Lucille Ball’s red mouth could open into that glorious, uninhibited laugh. Then there were the cherry-lipped beauty queens of the fifties, so polished and sunny they made the same color seem almost wholesome. The contradictions fascinated me. Red could look dangerous or sunny, knowing or sweet, and I was curious to see which of those women might appear when I put it on.

And then there was Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, whose red lips made glamour and power seem the most natural companions in the world. I had the costume and loved dressing up as her; becoming someone else was still as simple as putting it on. Here was a woman who could save the day and look absolutely divine doing it.

In the nineties, when the supermodels were everything, Cindy Crawford gave that curiosity somewhere to go. Her matte Revlon reds looked so rich against her dark hair and olive skin, coloring I recognized in my own reflection, down to my hazel eyes that so often read brown. I could picture myself in those shades. And so I tried them, with all the enthusiasm of a teenager discovering that she could make decisions about her own face. There was big hair, a red dress, red lipstick…the whole production delighted me.

“For a girl who loved vintage fashion magazines and old films, red was an early glimpse of the sort of womanhood I hoped to grow into.”

I enjoyed being looked at, too. I assumed anyone watching my mouth while I spoke must be admiring it, which was a rather lovely way to move through the world. Life eventually complicated that assumption, as a young lawyer I wanted to be taken seriously, more than looked at, and I wasn’t yet sure a woman could do both. So there were years of nudes and pale pinks, though even those retain a trace of red in Italian. Lipstick is rossetto, a diminutive of rosso, red, so you can choose the palest beige at the counter and still go home with a “little red.” The softer shades were pretty, and I liked feeling pretty; red, however, asked me to be comfortable with a more conspicuous sort of attention. People do watch your mouth when you wear it. And hopefully, this is not because there is lipstick on your teeth.

That attention comes with so many possible readings. A glossy scarlet mouth can seem extravagantly sexy, while the same color, blotted down and worn with a black turtleneck, suggests a woman whose taste you would like to know more about. Red has been asked to perform far stranger duties than either. In 1944, Elizabeth Arden advertised Montezuma Red to match the scarlet details of women Marines’ uniforms, making lipstick part of an image that combined military service with carefully maintained femininity. Even a woman reporting for duty was being shown how she ought to look. I admire the glamour of those advertisements, but am grateful that the choice is now mine.

And choosing it now feels different. I spend much less time wondering whether someone else will approve, though I still very much care how it looks. A severe, architectural black dress with a slash of red is marvelous — the color cuts through the starkness without softening it. Against cream or pale gray, it has another beauty, the mouth suddenly vivid above all that softness. I understand the appeal of a red lip with almost nothing else on the face, too, the way Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy wore hers with such spare clothes. What draws me to those images is the apparent certainty of her taste. I like the idea of reaching that kind of familiarity with your own choices, of knowing what pleases you and getting on with wearing it.

Of course, getting on with red requires a certain amount of fuss, which I happen to enjoy. My lips are naturally quite pink, enough to persuade some reds to turn pink themselves, so I sometimes mute the color with a trace of concealer before I begin. There is a sugar polish, moisturizer left to settle while I do the rest of my makeup, then pencil, feathered inward so the lipstick won’t disappear and leave only the outline behind. I apply the color straight from the bullet, leaning close to the glass, taking my time with those small strokes. Blot, reapply, inspect. Occasionally I add the faintest touch of gloss only at the center of the lower lip — god forbid anywhere else. There is already plenty to look at.

I have never minded that it asks something of me. I like finding the shade, making room for the preparation, taking out the tube later in the evening to restore what dinner has worn away. The search itself is part of the pleasure. At a luncheon at Barney’s benefiting UNICEF, I had the good fortune to sit beside Poppy King, the founder of Lipstick Queen, who was donning a red lip and looking fabulous in it. We talked makeup, naturally, and she told me there was a shade of red for every woman. “You just have to find your red.” She had even created Eden, a semi-sheer apple red intended to flatter every complexion — a rather persuasive way of making her point. I liked the generosity of that thought. How often do we admire something and dismiss it for ourselves before we’ve even tried it?

A red lip is worth trying, and worth allowing yourself time to get used to. Its presence is part of the point. I love kissing my husband on the cheek and leaving a pair of red lips there, or lifting my coffee cup to find the crescent of my mouth along its rim. I was here. The color lingers even after I take it off at night, a faint stain sometimes still visible the next morning. You do have to want to wear red as it can be rather reluctant to let you change your mind.

When I finish applying it and step back from the mirror, I often remember being a fearless teenager, experimenting with makeup and wondering what I might make of myself. I smile at the woman that girl has become. She still loves the glamour, still enjoys the attention, and now she knows how much pleasure there is in choosing something simply because she loves it. Every autumn gives us another chance to begin again. Mine begins with that smile, a tissue marked with red and the tube already in my bag.

Find Your Red

Try the color on your lips, rather than relying on a swatch on your hand, and look at your whole face in daylight. Your natural lip color can change how a shade appears—mine certainly does—and the finish makes a difference, too. Try a velvety matte, a satin or a sheer red before deciding the color isn’t for you. Give yourself a moment with each one. The first thing you notice may be how unfamiliar it looks; the next may be how much you like it.