To pick a favourite lip colour is much like choosing a favourite child or Beatles track, but I could fairly say that my most-worn shade is rose. It’s my default choice for almost anything, from a stroll on the beach if I’m feeling relatively effortful, a work lunch, a wedding or a posh do.
As a bold pink chastened by a neutral base, rose is a lip colour that always seems to hit the right note – unobtrusive but smart and pulled together. It’s a strong, feminine colour, not sugary and girly – and, more to the point, it’s extremely flattering on women of all ages and skin tones.
A rose must be darker than your natural lips to be a true one (otherwise it either drains the complexion or gets a bit 60s sex kitten – an altogether different vibe), and I find this a more reliable way of choosing than on the basis of overall skin tone or hair colour. My own favourite rose is Charlotte Tilbury’s Stoned Rose (£23), quite a dense, sophisticated lipstick for anyone with darkish lips or a love of colour. If I want something a little punchier, I opt for Estée Lauder’s Rebellious Rose (£25), which remains bold but is more playful. Bourjois Rose Incognito (£7.99), is a tad pale for my comfort zone, but looks glorious on many, and has the rich, creamy, lasting formula of a much more expensive lipstick.
I’m very impressed with the entire La Palette range from L’Oréal Paris, but the new Color Riche Lip Palette Nude collection (£12.99) is exceptional. There are two rosy shades here out of six, both gorgeous on medium to dark lips (the corals and pinks are endlessly wearable, too, and the buff is useful for mixing with darker shades to tone down). Even the free brush – usually awful – has a pretty well-designed head, if a stupidly short handle.
Among my favourite rose shades for darker tones is Kate Moss for Rimmel London’s Dark Nude (48) (£5.49). It’s a deep, earthy rosebud but with enough pink to make it cheerful. It looks beautiful against completely bare or heavily made-up, smoky eyes. A more traditional rose and something more suitable for lighter tones is Rose Nude (45) from the same collection, which is very much what I’d call a jeans-and-T-shirt lipstick – one you can swipe on almost unthinkingly, then get the hell on with the day.
