Tag: lip

Fabulous but quite serious: YSL's new gloss.

Do you know what, I'm thinking about getting back into lip gloss. I know! Sure, it can make your mouth look like an overripe melon, and sure, I know it's hard to walk down the street without getting flies and hair stuck to your glistening lips, but something in me says it's time. Lip-gloss time. I'm working up to YSL's new glosses (Rouge pur Couture Vernis Lvres, 22.50, yslbeauty.co.uk), which are fabulous but quite serious. In the meantime Clinique's Chubby Sticks (16, 0870 034 2566) are a lovely interim gloss, somewhere between a lip balm and your goddaughter's best crayons.

Alternatively...

Stila 15, asos.com
Givenchy 22.50, 01932 233 824
Tom Ford 32, selfridges.com
Clinique 16, 0870 034 2566

Black magic: tap into your inner goth with black-cherry lips. Photograph: Observer

If you're going to wear make-up, then you might as well really, really wear it. Catwalk make-up at the mo' is either "natural" (bit of Vaseline, a pinch of the cheek and the winsome eyes of someone far more virginal than you've ever been) or full-on looks, for which the statement lip is key. I say statement lip, but in the late 90s we just called it Rimmel black cherry and slopped it on on the bus. Now, we fill in the whole lip with pencil, topped off with Tom Ford's Black Orchid (36, harveynichols.com), which, despite costing more than a Michelin meal, is so rich with pigment you only need a single slick. It's like the black-cherry lipstick of our youth, but grown up and married to a millionaire.

Alternatively

Benefit Oh Currant 14, benefitcosmetics.co.uk
Chanel La Fascinante 23.50, 020 7493 3836
Illamasqua Kontrol Kontrol 15.50,illamasqua.com
Lord & Berry Black Red Vogue 11, asos.com
Diego Dalla Palma Dark Mauve Pencil 13, tesco.com