The Only 4 Products I Use For Natural, Juicy, Nude Lips
by Audie Metcalf
I am a lip product obsessive. I own 42 lip glosses. I just counted them.
42.
I tell you this because I really, really want to earn your trust when I say that I have found the only four products I will ever use again for that daily, undone, natural, not-lipsticky, not-too-orange, not-too-pink, not-too-brown, nude lip. Which, incidentally, is a dragon I’ve been chasing for roughly, oh, 30 years.
Now, listen. You might have a lighter skin tone than I. You might have a darker skin tone. All of these product colors can be tweaked to achieve your dream, natural, juicy nude lip, too. I used to be a makeup artist in my former life. DM me and I’ll help you pick a color that works for you.
No, really. I will.
Shall we dive in?
1. Charlotte Tilbury Tinted Lip & Cheek Tint in Bohemian Kiss
First, a stain. Yes, before lip liner. BEFORE! Starting with a neutralish stain means that even when you lick or kiss or eat all your other lip products off, your lips will still have that just-bitten flush. As opposed to that “hi, I’m over 40 so my lip and skin color fully just blend into each other now, how are you?”
This Charlotte Tilbury stain lasts for SO long that when I was testing its longevity, it remained on my hand after a SHOWER. So, like. It literally stains. And this is honestly the only type of lip product you want that “lasts” because I don’t care how many liquid lips or lipsticks that claim they’re moisturizing while being long-wearing, they all eventually make our lips look like a cracked, desert tumbleweed by the end of the day. Stop wearing them. They’re heinous.
Price: $34
2. Chanel Coco Flash in Boy
Next, the crown jewel in this quartet of products—the single greatest “nude” lipstick for my skin tone that I have ever worn in my entire 44 years on planet earth.
Most nudes, in my embarrassingly vast experience, are really just, well, varying shades of pale. And truly pale lip colors make most of us look, how do say? Ah, yes. Deceased. Because what we are actually looking for when we claim to want a “perfect nude” is “I want to look like I’m not wearing anything at all but somehow magically my lips look natural and juicy and essentially like my own lip color but much, much better.” Right? But then when we dutifully March into Sephora or Nordstrom, we invariably find shades that are much too pink or much too orange or much too brown but we’re emotionally blackmailed into buying something because the lady spent so much time with us and then we walk out with a bag full of expensive crap we never wear again.
So then we all just give up and smear on some random lip balm, hate-bake some banana bread, and don’t feel connected to the world anymore.
Now look. THIS lipstick is from Chanel. It’s not cheap. But think of all the money you’ve wasted on all those bags full of all those products you hate. And then imagine never having to be coerced into another lip color again.
Price: $45
3. NYX Creamy Lip Pencil in Nude Beige
Did you notice that lip liner is THIRD on this list? That’s because I use it as my third step. Oh yes. Not first. Not second. Third. Also, this lip liner is $4. So stop yelling at me about the Chanel lipstick price.
Ok, so you’ve dabbed on your stain, swiped a light coat of lipstick, now we’re now ready for the lightest outline drawn slightly outside your lips, almost as a contour. A shadow, even. Not a “lip” “line” because then you just look like you’re wearing lip liner. And unless you’ve invented a time machine to travel back to 1992 when incidentally a noticeable lip liner still wasn’t even that cute, we do not want our lips to look like they’re “lined.” We simply want our lips to look like the bee-sting pillows we were meant to have naturally, but apparently God was like, busy that day or something.
Price: $5
4. Tower28 ShineOn Jelly Lip Gloss
And lastly, a dab of gloss. A sheer, BRIGHT gloss, you’ll notice. NOT a nude gloss.
This is crucial to get that “natural lip” look as opposed to that “I look like a washed out corpse'‘ look that we are not going for.
THIS gloss is beyond shiny, feels like a dream, and is whatever the opposite of sticky is.
Price: $16
And because you need to know what the hell all of this looks like before you just choose to trust me, here you go:
Does it look like some amazing lip color? No. Does this photo even call attention to my lips? No. Does it just look like I have effortlessly natural lips even though it took FOUR products to look almost like nothing? Yes. And that’s what makeup should be.
And now, a handy (PUNS) pic of all four products swatched on my hand so you can get a sense of them separately.
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
At The Candidly, we try a lot of stuff so you don’t have to. We only recommend things we truly love, and that we think you’ll love, too. All products are chosen independently by our creative team, and all details reflect the price and availability of products at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission.
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