While my true love is a red lip, some days, and on some occasions, you just have to go with a nude. Red lips are high maintenance whereas nude lips are easy to swipe on, easy to swipe off, and can usually be reapplied without the help of a mirror. I also like a nude lip when I go wild with my eye makeup. So for all the times when I know I’ll be somewhere where I can’t whip out my compact and touch up my red lip (is there really a place where you can’t do that though?!), or if I’m trying to remain low-key on the lips, I keep a highly edited collection of carefully chosen nude lippies. My take on nudes in general is to try and always have a warm-toned peachy nude, a cool toned pink nude, and a warm-toned pink nude in my nude lip wardrobe. I tend to stay away from extremely pale nudes that make me look dead, and extremely cool-toned brown-ey, mauve-y nudes that tend to make my lips look like a bunch of veins have exploded on them. These days, I’ve discovered a few new favourites that I wanted to share here - all of these have been super handy during mask-time since they are easier to manage underneath a face covering.

Tatcha’s Peony Blossom Silk Lipstick is a limited edition lip color (still available though!). It’s the most perfect peach-pink lip color that brings life to my whole face. The texture is deliciously creamy and very much “silky” as the name would imply. The finish is cream with a bit of satin-like sheen and gliding it on the lips is a very pleasurable experience because it goes on very pillowy and soft. This is a high-pigment lipstick and it’s Tatcha so I am sure it’s stuffed with a lot of good things for my lips. I’ve had this lipstick for a while and I’ve used it a lot more than I thought I would!

Victoria Beckham Beauty’s Posh Lipstick in Pout and Sway are brand new acquisitions of a few months ago and they are fast becoming my go-to everyday nude lippies. These lipsticks are creamy, balm-like formulas that glide easily on to my lips. I wouldn’t say these are semi-sheer since they have quite a bit of pigment but they are not completely opaque either. The packaging is one of my favourite things about these lipsticks - super slim, weighty tubes that click shut in a very satisfying way. Pout is a light-medium, neutral peachy nude and Sway is a more cool-toned nude-pink. I find I use them a lot as an everyday at-home lip enhancer because they just look like my lips but better. Big fan.

Finally, Hermes’ gorgeous Rouge Hermes lipstick in Rose Nuit which is a limited edition matte shade. Hermes’s lipstick line was a very exciting launch and their limited edition lipsticks for every holiday season are something I look forward to - the color stories of the lipstick bullets, and the shades of the lipsticks themselves are wonderfully curated. I own a lot of red shades in this lipstick range and a few select nude ones. This particular shade, Rose Nuit, is part of the pink color story for this year’s limited edition collection and on me this is a dusty rosy pink shade that leans more cool than warm and is quite pigmented. The formula is a powdery, light-textured matte that is very comfortable to wear. Definitely a splurge but the packaging - a teal blue and pale pinky-beige - is a super chic bullet that would make for a perfect gift.

Swatches

So what are your favourite nudes these days?