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Friday, November 13, 2020

One Vogue Writer on the Transformative Power of Lipstick—Even in the Mask Era

In fact, for 15 or more years, Zadeh has been faithful to a single lip color—MAC Cosmetics lipstick in Snob, which she describes as “not a Kardashian nude but a matte pink with some blue in it. Even if I was at home and no one was there, it made me feel complete.” She’s wearing it even as we speak, she reveals. But in public, underneath a mask, Zadeh says, she isn’t feeling quite the same connection to her signature color; she’s recently tried forgoing lipstick and experimenting with eyeliner. “I’m in an in-between phase,” she admits a bit ruefully, “where I am open to new things.”

For Parisian influencer Jeanne Damas, founder of the vintage-inspired fashion-and-cosmetics label Rouje, putting on lipstick is “above all something I do for myself, like a second skin, a form of protection,” she tells me from the City of Light, on the eve of a second lockdown. True to French-girl lore, she favors a red lip and barely sun-kissed skin and has continued applying vibrant lip color, like her own brand’s Le Stylo Rouje in Marie, daily for the past few months, relying on KN95 masks with their recognizable center crease—“the ones that make you look like a duck,” she elaborates—to avoid smearing.

For some women, simply brandishing a bullet in public has long been a gesture of empowerment. “Nothing is more beautiful than, just before landing in an airplane, or after lunch, when a woman opens her purse, takes out lipstick and a little mirror, and touches up her lip,” Peter Philips, creative and image director of Christian Dior Makeup, explains, recalling halcyon days gone by. “That, and the click of the product as she closes and puts it back in her purse—it’s like a combatant putting on war paint, or a bird of paradise spreading out his feathers. That one-minute process, that ritual, gives you a terrific boost.”

Well, I am unlikely to be getting on an airplane anytime soon, and for the moment my lunches are mostly solitary affairs at my desk. But it was time, I decided, for a much-needed boost. For at-home wear, a touch of Rouge Hermès in satiny Rose Ombré provided a luxuriously sensual application experience, with a pleasantly weighty, refillable case whose three bands of color reminded me of a dress the artist Ellsworth Kelly once designed for a friend. Yet for what counts as an outing these days—a late-­afternoon trip to the grocery store—I wanted a color with a little more “oomph.” Experts had counseled lip stain or pencil to avoid smudging under my mask, but for me, nothing but the full bullet would do. I lingered over Rouge Dior’s classic 999 (soon-to-be reformulated with red peony, pomegranate flower, and shea butter) but ultimately chose a slightly darker, bluer red: Givenchy’s Le Rouge Deep Velvet Limited Edition Rouge Grainé. After putting it on, I seemed to recognize, as if after a long absence, the woman looking back at me in the mirror. My suddenly scarlet lips led me back to my closet, where I put on a red silk blouse.

I donned my KN95 mask and went out. Life, I realized, had been unfolding in black-and-white for quite some time. And my lipstick, though invisible to others, had changed something in my body language or my approach to the world. Perhaps it was the secret pleasure I took in wearing it, like beautiful lingerie that no one else would ever see. I was a mere half-block from my home when a man passing me on the street said, in a soft voice, “Hello, sexy”—and I wasn’t offended. In fact, the social scientist in me was highly amused. It was a little, anarchic spark of libido, illuminating the general gloom. Underneath my mask, I smiled.

Hermès Rouge Hermès Satin Lipstick Limited Edition In 45 Rose Ombré

$72

HERMÈS

Le Stylo Rouje Marie

$32

LE STYLO

Dior Rouge Dior Lipstick in 999 Satin Red

Givenchy Le Rouge Deep Velvet Lipstick In 37 Rouge Grainé

$38

GIVENCHY

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