Willthat rather nineties beauty trend - frosted, metallic lipstick - make a comeback in the noughties? Our Beauty Director Joanna McGarry tries the trend.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that for most women around the age of 30, their teenage initiation into make-up began with a Rimmel lipstick called Heather Shimmer. A bit mauve, a bit lilac, with a sprinkling of silver, it created a reflective, metallic finish that’s left an indelible mark on the beauty landscape. Lodged in the dusty files of my memory, it sits next to Montell Jordan’s This Is How We Do It and a summer obsession with Fab ice lollies. I haven’t deigned to go anywhere near such sparkling shades since.
Until now that is. That shimmer has been transposed into a host of punchy, unexpected colours on the spring/summer 2012 catwalk. We saw it two seasons ago at Rodarte in a delicate, rose-gold hue and now Mary Katrantzou has showcased it in cobalt blue, olive green and fuchsia. Scary, yes, but on closer inspection, oddly beautiful. I took it on in a less intimidating burnt orange shade (which, in hindsight is perhaps not best worn with an acid yellow dress – I felt like I was on my way to a 1992-inspired rave). It feels almost like wearing a film of coloured foil over your lips, which made me feel like a beauty experimentalist ringing in the changes.
Today’s formulas have done somersaults too – the new metallic colours (thanks to the finely milled particles in modern lipsticks) give lips a hitherto unseen boost of volume. They actually protrude from your face. It’s certainly a look. A look we may very well be still be talking about 20 years from now.
