Ask Danielle: Wearing Reds and Pinks with Confidence

The Style and Beauty Doctor reader Tima wrote in saying: “I stumbled across your blog about a month ago and I LOVE IT!!! and I was wondering if you could maybe do a post about women of color not being afraid to go into the reds & pink lip shades. For me Im a bit darker so it is intimidating when choosing these colors and wearing them with confidence so if you have any advice please share. Thank you.”

Tima, girl…you can wear your pink and rep lip shades very well and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! Anybody can rock any color—it just has to be the right shade (light or dark), intensity (bright or muted), and temperature (warm or cool). This is why it baffles me that society (?) comes up with all these fake rules that dark skin women can’t look good in certain colors. Allow me to stray away from answering this post for a second to ask all my dark skin sisters to gather around, hold hands, and on the top of your lungs scream “YES, WE CAN!!!!”…lol. Seriously, I’d like for my readers of every race, color, ethnicity, and age to know that this blog is for everybody and everybody will find helpful tips here to become a better you.

Anyway, Tima, you should look for reds and pinks that are vibrant and darker in color like the ones shown below. You can ease your way into reds and pinks by starting off with sheer lipsticks or glosses or even mute them with lip pencils like MAC Lip Pencil in Chestnut or Nightmoth (both are lip pencil staples for dark skinned sisters). You also want to look at the temperature of a color and match it with the temperature of your skin. For instance, if you see more of a yellow or gold undertone to your skin, choose lip colors that have this same undertone. If you notice more of a red or blue undertone to your skin, choose lip colors in that undertone.

For red and pink first-timers, I suggest keeping the lips as the focus in your makeup looks and keeping everything else understated at first. Then ease more dramatic eye makeup looks as you get more comfortable with your reds and pinks. Either way, don’t forget the blush!