Anna Pursglove: Why do I bother buying lipsticks?

Why do I bother buying lipsticks? Anna Pursglove on her doggedly determined search for that elusive flattering shade

• Anna’s tried orangey reds, bluey reds and reddy reds, but she remains hopeful
• READ MORE:  Why I’ve fallen for my first red lipstick at 52… and you can too

I look ridiculous in lipstick. ‘Ah,’ nod the make-up gurus, ‘this is because you’re wearing the wrong shade for your skin tone.’ 

It’s not, though. Honestly. I’ve tried orangey reds, bluey reds and reddy reds. I’ve tried pinks and browns and more glosses than you can shake a sponge-tipped stick at. I’ve buffed and prepped. I’ve even tried a lip mask (I know, I know, and I agree with you: life is too short). 

‘In that case,’ you suggest sensibly, ‘why not just stop buying lipstick? It sounds as though you’ve given it a fair shot.’ And therein lies the problem: I continue to labour under the conviction that there’s a shade out there for me. The one. 

If I were a millennial, I’d tell you that I have lipstick triggers. First among them is the phrase ‘slick of red lipstick’. I want to be a woman who can slick. And these women exist. 

I go weightlifting with one of them and even when deadlifting 75kg she is rocking a Chanel red. I want some of that slick action. I want it so badly, in fact, that by the time I’ve got home I’ve totally forgotten that I look like a plonker in lipstick. 

Red alert: Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Anna fears that she also looks like a clown when she tries to wear red lipstick – even a shade by Chanel

Out comes the Rouge Coco Ultra Hydrating (in Gabrielle, since you ask) and there it is – clown face. Or what a clown who had just slapped on some ill-advised, post-workout, red lipstick and was frantically trying to rub it off with her finger might look like. 

On the subject of lip rubbing, let’s address gloss. Maybe it would suit me, but I’ll never know because I can’t get the stuff to stay on. Not even for one drink. How are other women achieving that perma-sheen? Are they sneakily reapplying? Do they know about an industrial varnish that I’m not aware of? 

I have turned to Google for advice and the top answer is: ‘The more you rub your lips together, the more likely your gloss is to come off… so keep the lip smacking, rubbing and pursing to a minimum.’ 

Excessive lip smacking and pursing can, I think, be crossed off the list. I’m not a tuba player. As to rubbing, well, maybe I could try speaking without one lip touching the other, but I fear the effect would be even more alarming than the Gabrielle. 

Back to lipstick, and last year, when I thought my ship had come in. The 90s look had returned and, with it, brown lips. Suffering from yet another bout of beauty amnesia, I bought the Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Intense shade that all my friends were raving about. 

‘It’s just like the colour we wore at 20,’ they enthused. One look in the mirror, however, confirmed the truth: I looked idiotic in brown lipstick in 1992 and three intervening decades had done nothing to change that. 

On Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell it said heavenly smile. On me it said heavy smoker. So that leaves pink – which is either pretty much red (see aforementioned ‘clown face’ pitfalls) or ‘nude’. 

Surely that’s just the colour of lips without lipstick? But maybe I need to reconsider a nude lip because there is mounting cultural pressure to pledge allegiance to a shade. 

The lipstick index is rising as higher sales are our safe place in times of financial uncertainty. There’s even a National Lipstick Day: I’ve got until 29 July 2024 to get my act together. Which is why I’ve decided to be more Zara Tindall. 

Her make-up artist Alisia Ristevski recently told Hello! magazine that for events like the Coronation, Zara wears a ‘natural’ shade. She goes on to recommend Chanel Rouge Coco in Mademoiselle. 

Now Zara is a bit like me, I think. Sort of small and blonde. Not that fussed, if she’s totally honest, about standing out in a crowd. Probably not a natural lipstick wearer. Could her shade be my shade? 

So here I am again on the John Lewis website, finger poised over ‘Add to basket’. I like the Mademoiselle but Coco is pretty too, even at £35 a pop… Like I told you: hope springs eternal in my make-up bag.

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