#21. Find the Perfect Red Lipstick

First let me tell you that I don’t wear lipstick ever. I don’t wear lip gloss; I don’t even use Chap Stick – unless I have to in the winter. I also am under the strong belief that red lipstick makes me look like a hooker. 

My cousin’s wedding is quickly approaching and my dress is black & white, so I figured I’d wear my red heels (yes I can pull those off), and that I’d find some red lipstick to top off the outfit. I’ve had the dress since May and figured lipstick couldn’t be that hard.

I looked for some kind of inspiration in other blondes that wear red lipstick – you know Gwen Stefani, or Scarlett Johansson, or Christina Aguilera. Scarlett goes so far as to say she uses red lipstick for therapy. I myself think wine, running, or shopping is therapy – but if it’s that good – I had to test it out for myself.

I am not frugal but I am against running out and buying every red lipstick available just to try it on, what does that leave me with – testers. Testers in drug stores, department stores, and grocery superstores. Where are all of those places? In Public. When you look like a hooker do you really want to be out in public?(unless of course you a first year university student) When you try on a red lipstick, look at yourself in the mirror and decide Bozo the clown can pull it off better than you can, you immediately wipe it off – only red lipstick stains. So the brightness is gone, but you now look like a hooker the next morning, or Courtney Love.

Did I mention family pictures are being taken at this wedding? Pictures that are going to be around and framed in family member’s homes – I know this because the last family picture taken 10+ years ago still haunts me. So if I’m going to pull off red lipstick I have to do it 10+ years of trends good until the next if ever picture is taken. That’s pressure.

So I get it all narrowed down, decide on a Revlon lipstick as when I’m only likely going to wear this lipstick once, maybe twice, I’m not spending an arm and a leg on it. I have it in my hand, I’m wandering the store waiting for a prescription to be filled before I can check out when I wander down the hair dye aisle and remember that I’m having my hair colored the night before the wedding, so it’s quite possible the lipstick won’t match.

Wasted hours and numerous appearances looking like a hooker for nothing, lipstick went back on the shelf, and I’m giving up. There is no way in a small town after 8pm on a Friday (when my hair appointment is over), that I will find the perfect red lipstick that will look good in a photograph for 10 years – impossible.

Another blogger posted pictures of herself as a blonde as a redhead and it gave me the guts to finally do it (while I’m still young). So instead of red lipstick, I’ll have red hair, and for the next 10 years when I look at the family picture I just might kick myself :)