Your Lips Have an Undertone Too.

Why the same lipstick can become a completely different colour on you — and why that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

SHADE Journal · Beauty Notes

Have you ever bought a lipstick because you loved it on someone else, put it on yourself and thought:

Where did that colour go?

On her, it was the perfect nude.

On you, suddenly it looked pink.

Or grey.

Or much lighter than expected.

Or somehow darker.

Maybe you blamed your skin tone.

Maybe you decided the lipstick simply wasn’t for you.

But there’s another part of choosing lip colour that we don’t talk about enough:

THE COLOUR ALREADY ON YOUR LIPS.

Your lips aren’t a blank canvas.

And we don’t think they should be treated like one.

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BEFORE THE LIPSTICK, THERE’S YOU.

Look at your bare lips in natural daylight.

Really look.

Are they pale pink?

Rosy?

Brown-pink?

Peachy?

Mauve?

Do you have more pigmentation around the outer lip?

Is your upper lip naturally deeper than your lower lip?

Is the centre lighter?

Those differences matter.

Because when you apply a lip colour, you’re not always seeing the colour from the bottle sitting independently on top of you.

You’re seeing your natural lip colour interacting with it.

And that’s one reason the exact same lipstick can have a different personality on two different women.

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SKIN TONE IS ONLY PART OF THE CONVERSATION.

We hear a lot about choosing makeup according to skin tone and undertone.

Fair.

Light.

Medium.

Deep.

Warm.

Cool.

Neutral.

They’re useful pieces of information.

But when we’re talking specifically about lipstick, your natural lip pigmentation belongs in the conversation too.

Imagine two women with similar complexions.

One has naturally light pink lips.

The other has naturally deeper, more pigmented lips.

Put the same sheer or medium-coverage nude on both of them and you shouldn’t automatically expect an identical result.

Their starting colours aren’t identical.

And that’s not a problem that needs correcting.

IT’S PART OF WHAT MAKES THE COLOUR THEIRS.

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SO WHY DOES YOUR NUDE SOMETIMES LOOK “WRONG”?

Nude is particularly interesting because we’re asking one colour to sit very close to colours that naturally exist in our face.

A nude that’s significantly lighter than your natural lip colour may create more contrast than you expected.

A nude with a strong beige character can behave differently against naturally rosy lips.

A pink nude can appear more or less pink depending on the colour underneath it.

And deeper natural pigmentation can give the finished colour an entirely different depth.

This is why finding a beautiful nude isn’t always about asking:

“What skin tone is this made for?”

Sometimes the better question is:

“WHAT IS THIS COLOUR GOING TO MEET WHEN IT REACHES MY LIPS?”

That’s a much more interesting way to think about lipstick.

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TRY THIS BEFORE YOU CHOOSE YOUR NEXT SHADE.

Stand near a window during the day.

No lipstick.

No lip liner.

No filter.

Look at your natural lips and ask yourself three things:

1. WHAT COLOUR DO I ACTUALLY SEE?

Don’t overthink the terminology.

Pink? Brown? Rose? Peach? Mauve? A mixture?

Your answer doesn’t need to sound like a makeup artist wrote it.

2. IS THE COLOUR EVEN ACROSS MY LIPS?

Look at the upper and lower lip separately.

Look at the outline and centre.

Natural variation is completely normal — and useful to notice when you’re choosing colour.

3. WHAT DO I WANT MY LIPSTICK TO DO WITH IT?

This might be the most important question.

Do you want to stay close to your natural lip colour?

Make it rosier?

Soften it?

Add depth?

Brighten the centre?

Create stronger definition?

Or completely change the mood?

Suddenly you’re not asking:

“Which lipstick is right?”

You’re asking:

“What do I want colour to do for me today?”

And that’s much more personal.

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YOU DON’T ALWAYS NEED TO CANCEL YOUR NATURAL LIP COLOUR.

For one of the women who helped inspire our Nude, this became especially important.

She naturally has more visible pigmentation in her lips.

Finding a nude wasn’t simply about matching the skin around them.

The shade also had to make sense on her actual lips.

Too light and it could feel disconnected.

Too deep and it wasn’t giving her the nude she wanted.

Too little colour and her natural pigmentation dominated the result.

Too much and she stopped feeling like herself.

We weren’t trying to erase what was naturally hers.

WE WERE TRYING TO FIND THE BALANCE THAT WORKED WITH IT.

That distinction eventually influenced the way I thought about creating colour for SHADE BY SHAHD.

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MAYBE THE GOAL ISN’T “COVER.”

Maybe it’s conversation.

Your natural lip colour brings something.

The lipstick brings something.

And the final result belongs to the woman wearing both.

This is also why I don’t think beauty brands should pretend one swatch can tell the entire story of a lipstick.

We want you to see colour on different women.

Different complexions.

Different natural lips.

Real product.

Real use.

Because the variation isn’t something we need to hide.

THE VARIATION IS THE POINT.

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NOW TRY THE SAME LIPSTICK DIFFERENTLY.

Here’s where it gets fun.

Take a lip colour you already own — especially one you’ve decided you don’t love — and experiment before giving up on it.

Wear it alone.

Look at what your natural lip colour does to it.

Add a slightly deeper liner.

Notice whether creating definition changes the balance.

Add something lighter only through the centre.

See what happens to dimension.

Apply less.

Tap it into the lips instead of creating a completely opaque layer.

Then try a fuller application.

The same lipstick may suddenly give you several completely different results.

That’s part of the philosophy behind our own collection.

We don’t necessarily want five products to give you five possibilities.

WE WANT A FEW THOUGHTFUL PRODUCTS TO GIVE YOU MANY.

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YOUR TURN.

We want to know something.

Look at your lips without makeup and finish this sentence:

“MY NATURAL LIP COLOUR IS __________.”

Then tell us:

What is the hardest lip colour for you to find?

The perfect Nude?

Pink Nude?

Brown?

Coral?

Something else entirely?

And here’s the question I’m personally most interested in:

WHAT ALWAYS GOES WRONG?

Too beige?

Too pink?

Too pale?

Too dark?

Turns grey?

Looks completely different from the swatch?

Tell us.

Because those answers aren’t just comments to us.

They’re information.

And listening to real women is part of how we want to decide what SHADE BY SHAHD creates next.

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YOUR LIPS AREN’T THE BEFORE PICTURE.

They’re already part of the finished colour.

So the next time a lipstick looks different on you than it did on somebody else, don’t immediately assume something went wrong.

Look again.

Maybe you’re simply seeing what happens when that colour meets you.

And perhaps that’s a better way to discover your SHADE.

YOUR NATURAL COLOUR. YOUR SHADE. YOUR STORY.

— Shahd