One of my favorite toys as a child was my Crayola Caddy. It housed the tools that entertained me for hours on end — crayons, watercolor paints, felt-tipped markers and colored pencils, all on a rotating bright yellow caddy. I doodled in coloring books purchased on one of mine and Mama’s weekly trips to Sunflower grocery store in town, but my favorite art project was painting a likeness of Mama on a blank page.
I laugh now about drawing both of her arms on the same side or always painting her standing in a bucket of water. I struggled with creating shoes, don’t you know. The lips were always pink or red. The hair color changed as often as it did in real life, and perhaps even way back then my passion for makeup artistry was budding.
If I painted the fall trend in lip color nowadays, it would require much darker hues because we have bid farewell to the summer neutrals, pinks and corals and are greeting a more daring, bolder lip color. Think rich merlot, brazen burgundy, even powerful shades of brown when you paint your puckers this season.
The look requires some finesse. We must make sure you don’t come off resembling Morticia from “The Addams Family” or the haunting Elvira, mistress of the night. When painting on a deep, dark pout that will get you noticed in all the right ways, remember to line the lips first, filling in the lips with your chosen lip pencil, not once, but twice for added staying power. I never much liked coloring inside the lines as a child artist, and even today it requires some patience and much practice.
For those of you with thinner lips who want to give the illusion of fullness, you have my permission to line just barely outside the lip’s natural contour. Keep a concealer pen nearby to erase mistakes, and apply with a clean lip brush a bit of translucent powder around the edges to keep the lipstick from feathering into the lines around the mouth.
Finish off the lips with one of the many decadent lipsticks, and keep it current with a matte, long-lasting formula. If you aren’t quite daring enough to color your lips from this month’s pages of the fashion magazines, forgo the darker lipstick and smear on a deliciously darker shade of gloss. Oh, and keep it balanced by playing down the eye makeup and swirling on just a bit of bronzer.
While this might not be your everyday look, try the bold lip for special events this holiday season. If you feel overwhelmed, ask for help at the cosmetics counters across the state. Just think of them as your own grown-up Crayola Caddies!
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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