Face of the Day a la Madmen - The Luscious Red Lip

Red Lip, Neutral Eye, Liner with a Flick, MADMEN!

We had to catch up on Madmen before the Season 5 premiere, and halfway through the Sunday Netflix marathon, I knew I had to do the red lip thing Monday. Christina Hendricks as Joan can really rock a vivid lip. What's nice about the early to mid 60s is there are lots of options available, including hot pink and tangerine. But I have to say, doing the bright lip at work, or for any extended period of time anywhere, takes some effort. Touch-ups, and touch-ups and touch-ups.

Do my lips look smaller?

Bright lipstick is supposed to make your lips look smaller, and so thin-lipped ladies like myself are supposed to avoid it.  But I kind of like the way it looks.  There's nothing more feminine and ladylike than a red lip.

And Revlon still has some great red shades. I'm wearing Super Lustrous Créme Certainly Red #740. Here are some others they still sell, and the years they launched. Pretty cool stuff.

I already own Fire and Ice because of its famous ad campaigns over the years. Below is a sample. Certainly Red is wearable for me because it's a bluer red -- it doesn't make my slightly dingy teeth look worse. (Okay, maybe not so "slightly.") But I love Fire and Ice...its brilliant candy-apple splashiness.

I think I bought Cherries in the Snow once when I was in high school, but that was the early 80s, and Madonna hadn't yet brought back the red lip. I just liked it--that hint of fuchsia in the deep red tone. I want to rock it now, and Love that Pink, and Hot Coral. The touch ups are worth the effort.

Cherries in the Snow Ad

In a red lip I feel like my elegant and lovely Mom, my Granny in a big hat playing shuffleboard on the deck of an Alcoa freighter, my Aunt Diana chain-smoking and leaving that perfect ring of red on every filter in that stacked up ashtray. So gloriously female.

I had a friend in New York who was working for the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Diana Vreeland was directing the Diaghilev Costume Exhibit. Apparently she decided the catalog, the opening rooms, most of the exhibit should be done in rich, true red, because, as she said,

"Red is the only neutral color."

Here's what I used:

Face:

• Embryolisse Lait-Créme Concentré 24 Hour Cream
• Skin79 Super Beblesh Balm
• Coty Loose Powder

La Femme Blushes

 Cheeks:

• La Femme Blush in Coral 

NYX Butt Naked Palette Eyes

Eyes:

• Urban Decay Primer Potion
• NYX Butt Naked Palette--top left lightest all over lid; middle row second from right taupe; brown bottom row, second from right, along lash line
• Anastasia brow wax, powder duo in blonde, and using Petite Arch brow stencil -- this is magic to shape your brows!

• HIP black gel eyeliner tight-lined under upper lashes, along upper lashes, with a little flick at outer edges, and drawn along lower lashes about a third of the way
• Anastasia double ended nude pencil along lower water line, to open the eye. Do these people make a product I don't like?  Not so far!
• Stila Lash Visor Waterproof mascara in black.

Do I feel bold enough to wear Fire and Ice to work next week? I hope so!

Now go have fun, Lovelies!