There Comes A Time in the Life of Every Lipstick
/I am a STAUNCH supporter of Nars's Cruella velvet matte lip pencil. It's creamy, it's matte, it doesn't get stuck to my hair and then spread strands of red all over my face like I was caught in a paper cut windstorm. It's my best friend, and we've been together for a long time.
But. FROWNY FACE.
I know that Cruella's time will come, and like all products I've loved and loyally supported, it will become discontinued. I'm still crying for Revlon's Candied Apple, circa 1998. And now every third time I try to order Cruella I get an "out of stock". Or, even more horrifying, I'll see a missing swatch of color where all the other Velvet Matte Lip Pencils reside - where Cruella had happily bridged the gap between blazingly red Dragon Girl and oh lord another shade of pink Never Say Never.
The hunt for a good red lipstick is tough, people, and it only gets tougher when colors like Coral come screaming on to the shelves, wiping out all the decent reds and promising you they won't look like fluorescent tangerine bubblegum on your face. Oh, but they will. They will.
So, this holiday season, armed with a generous Sephora gift card, I dipped my toe in another pool of reds - and found a new standby. I bring you Smashbox's BE LEGENDARY (which makes me say that, aloud, every time I use is a la Barney Stinson) lipstick in Infrared:
I'll admit it is a touch ligther than Cruella, and of course since it's a lipSTICK, you run into some of the usual stick problems. But because it's a matte, it has some staying power and doesn't want to bleed outside of my lips or leak onto my teeth.
It's not Cruella, but it'll do. And that's saying a lot!
Anyone else found any worthy reds out there?