Lipstick?

Vanessa Paradis in the Chanel Rouge Coco Campaign

P: I don’t wear makeup, never have and my friends and fellow editors don’t either.  I have a lovely Louis Vuitton makeup bag which holds one tube of mascara, end stop. So when Jennifer started talking about Chanel’s launch of the Rouge Coco lipstick, I pretended to not hear her-I knew what she would suggest.

J: I do wear a bit of makeup–tinted moisturizer, blush, mascara and lip gloss. I’ve gone on and off lipstick, but for the past three years, except occasionally at night, it’s been about gloss. So when Chanel’s master makeup artist, Peter Philips, said the launch of Rouge Coco was his hope that women would return to wearing lipstick, my interest was peaked. The act of applying lipstick is very grown-up, swiping lip gloss on is sort of teenager-ish. I bought Sycomore, a pinky brown with a slight shimmer. I have to say I’m hooked.

The texture is light and moisturizing, not cakey and dry. Not goopy like a gloss (notice when it’s windy your hair never gets “stuck” in lipstick like it does with gloss). The smell is still old-fashioned, which, to me, gives it some glamour. Actually wearing lipstick makes me feel more put together. I’m thinking of trying Gabrielle, a red that is supposed to be not too orange or too blue.

P: Jennifer encouraged me to let the woman at Chanel choose a lip color for me as this would guarantee that I would not buy a shade of beige.  This was good advice.  The sales woman chose Legend which is a berry pink and I have to admit that it looks great. So great that I ventured into the land of tinted moisturizer–which I cannot believe I have lived this long without. I also picked up a new day moisturizer that smells so good I could eat it. All in all a transformative adventure!