Hot or Not Beauty

While browsing for my next purchase (I thought it was going to be Yves Saint-Laurent’s Temps Majeur foundation, but that’s a story for another time) I witnessed a common situation to all those in retail and beauty counters. People who don’t know what they want and can’t explain it.

I was looking at Poudre Sur Mesure (something also for another time) and I heard the weirdest dialogue that happens more often than it should.

“Hi, I’m looking for a natural red lipstick.” the poor girl taking care of this confused woman gulped and just blankly stared at her before going to the Chanel lipstick stand and starting showing her deeper neutral shades and the woman “That’s not what I want, you’re not getting it.”, so the girl started showing reds and the woman immediately snapped “That doesn’t look natural at all!” (Of course it doesn’t dear, it’s RED), almost 20 minutes of not liking anything she stormed out mumbling how badly trained people are at counters and the girl had a sort of crushed look on her face.

What I do think happens here is that people skim through beauty magazines and get it all wrong and then confuse those who actually know what they’re doing.

A natural shade of lipstick is something that is very close to your own lips pigmentation and evens out the color but isn’t garish or with dazzling finishes (like Frost/Shimmer/Iridescence), I mean seriously, if you’re wearing a glittery sparkle lipstick or gloss and someone tells you that it looks natural, they’re either being ironic or just drunk. And that applies to red lipstick, I am yet to see someone with Marilyn Monroe like red lips! Yes, it’s beautiful, gorgeous, always in fashion, sexy but it’s not natural! The closest you can get is probably a sort of lip stain or balm that gives it that red aura to your lips, but isn’t IN YOUR face.

Before you embark on a quest for a new lipstick get your lingo straightened and don’t ask for things followed by antonym adjectives like “natural red”. You’ll be getting what you want faster and better. Talking about red lipstick reminded me of my first post here, so it has a sort of nostalgia for me now!