After mentioning my former roommate Adrienne’s love of red lipstick in this week’s post on Gwen Stefani, she emailed me the following tidbit:

“…I do use (MAC) Russian Red all the time, but my trusty favorite for major drama is still (MAC) Ruby Woo for the ultimate dry matte look.  It’s the only lipstick that really invokes 1940’s glam!” 

Perennially hot mama-to-be Gwen Stefani was literally around the corner from my house last night!  She and hubby Gavin Rossdale were eating at Marix, which is a yummy tex mex restaurant (and where I had my birthday last year, by the by.)  You know, call me a dork, but I will never become jaded by celebrity spottings/proximity; I can’t help but think it’s amazing when we cross paths or visit the same haunts.  Are they better or more important than you and me?  No, nein, non.  But are they prettier and more Ooh! to look at?  (Despite…or because of…the airbrushing and gym-ratting and plastic surgerizing and salon sleekifying…?)  Um, yeah. 

Gwen’s trademark cherry-red lips make me happy in a really primal beauty way.  How does she pull it off so well time and again?  (Gwen in red lipstick=amazing.  Jolie in red lipstick=clownish mess.  The only “real” girl I’ve ever met who can pull off red lipstick is my former roommate Adrienne.  Props, A.!)  The trick to wearing red is finding a shade that works with your coloring; Gwen has a very warm, yellowish look because of her Italian-heritage skintone and brown eyes, so she sticks with vivid, creamy blue-reds without pink/fuschia in them.  (My recommendation: MAC Cosmetics lipstick in Russian Red, which is rumored to be her favorite color and is pretty much universally acknowledged to be the best shade of red lipstick, even for those with pink/cool undertones.)

Side note: Whenever I see a pregnant celebrity with zero roots, I can’t help wondering what the deal is.  According to some health professionals, it’s safe to dye your hair after the first trimester; others say that because small amounts of dye are absorbed into your body, which can theoretically have an effect on the baby’s organ development, you should avoid dye in general and only highlight or frost if you must.  (Pregnancy or no, I’m kind of creeped out by the fact that the dye seeps into the bloodstream at all!)

I am loving the genius behind CARGO PlantLove Botanical Lipsticks.  Sure, sure, the shades are pretty and were designed by beautiful celebrities (Lindsay Lohan!  Angie Harmon!  Evangeline Lily!), and the formula is infused with meadowfoam seed oil, jojoba and shea butter, and the lipstick feels nice and totally glam.  Whatever, CARGO, you designed an awesome lipstick.  Good for you.  For the first time ever, I want to focus on the packaging!  Not only are the tubes to-die-for gorgeous (I mean, just look at them), but they’re made from biodegradable corn (an abundant, renewable resource), and the carton itself is made from flower paper embedded with flower seeds.  So, you can actually plant the boxes…and flowers will grow.  Maybe I’ve had too much coffee today, or maybe I’m turning into a hippie, but I think this is about the coolest thing ever.  Bonus: CARGO is donating two dollars from every sale to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.  So much love.

My family moved from Dallas to Atlanta when I was 12 years old.  Maybe you’d think, “Hey, exchanging one southern city for another…whatever, can’t be that big of a change…” You’d be wrong.  Apparently, judging by the haughty reactions to my hair and clothes in the oh-so-chic halls of Haynes Bridge Middle School, I might as well have come from Mars.  Seventh grade was my Limited phase, and I was particularly proud of a floor-length orange silk skirt I’d wear with a fitted white shirt, gold hoop earrings and gold sandals.  Having already reached hair-narcissist status, I blew my frizzy waves out every morning using prodigious amounts of mousse and elbow grease.  And seeing as this was 1992—way back before I discovered Pearl Jam and still thought Mariah Carey was the coolest (a simpler time!)—I looked like the quintessential high-maintenance Texas chick, complete with bright red lipstick and the aforementioned mousse-laden hair. At Haynes Bridge, I was swiftly targeted by “the popular girls”, who unleashed their sneering wrath with full-force, sending me fleeing to the local mall for a wardrobe upgrade.  I jettisoned the bright lipstick, too, switching to the much-more Alpharetta approved Softlips.  Ever since, I’ve been terrified of bright lipstick (um, and orange silk.  And popular girls named Portia) and have found myself quite the connoisseur of not-trying-too-hard lipglosses and balms.  So, the fact that I’ve found a lipstick I like is no mean feat.   Avon Ultra Color Rich Mousse Lipstick comes in 14 pigment-rich shades like Very Vixen and Mellow Magenta and has a mousse-formula core that moisturizes, glides on, and keeps the lipstick from being too matte or one-dimensional.  Which basically means it’s lipstick for girls who prefer lipgloss.  (And it’s only $8!)  My ten-year high school reunion is coming up in a few months…I will definitely not be wearing an orange gypsy skirt, but I absolutely will wear bold-as-I-please lipstick again, even if those mean-ol’ popular girls are there.

I haven’t tried it yet, but Lancome releases a new limited-editon lipstick tomorrow: Lancome Color Fever Shine Lipstick in Pixel Pink, co-created by designer Thakoon Panichgul and makeup artist Gucci Westman.  I have to admit, I find it somewhat amusing that Thakoon is oh-my-God-SO-hot nowadays, because he and I simultaneously worked at Harper’s Bazaar a million years ago.  Me: a lowly features intern; He: something similarly unglamorous, like fashion slave associate.  Who knew we had a future supastar running around?  (Probably everybody but me.)

Anyhoo, the lipstick is first available on lancome-usa.com, then will be at Neiman’s and Bergdorf’s on March 1st.  I don’t know where the hell I’ve been (apparently, not studying press releases!), but this is the fourth in a series of Pout-a-Porter lipsticks released in conjunction with designers, the first three being collaborations with Behnaz Sarafpour, Proenza Schouler and Peter Som.  It costs twenty-five clams.

And here we have a “pretty” picture of a model wearing the shade.  Do you think she realizes there’s violet gunk all over her face?  (I’m telling you, ’tis the shade of the season!)  Purple eyeshadow can look phenomenal, but to avoid looking like you got into a bar brawl, I advise you to keep it confined to a small section of your visage.  Like, you know, eyelids.  A little rust-or-taupe colored shadow underneath plus black eyeliner will also ground the look and keep it from looking cartoonish.  I get that there’s a whole Japanese Kabuki vibe happening, but…c’mon.  Who actually looks good like this??

Pix by Sean Cunningham