Lifestyle Mirror

When awards season kicked off and the close-up images of our favorite celebrities started pouring in, nearly every single one had something in common: A pink lip. It was on Anne Hathaway (Chanel), Michelle Dockery (Chanel), Kerry Washington (Armani), Amy Adams (Laura Mercier), Emily Blunt (Hourglass), Sienna Miller (Chanel), Claire Danes (Laura Mercier), Hayden Panettiere, and Marion Cotillard.

If we had done the same exercise a year ago—even a season ago—we would have seen dozens upon dozens of red lips. And then, the red lip’s inevitable flankers: the bright red, the orange-red, and the burgundy.

“When you use pink, you have a vibe of something that’s very polished and finished and elegant without a harshness that can happen with a dark lipstick, or that very period thing that can happen on a red carpet with a red lipstick,” says Pati Dubroff, makeup legend (and the woman on hand for Sienna Miller at the Golden Globes this year).

Ms. Dubroff isn’t one to talk much about runway trends, so we’ll do that for her. On the runways for spring, Giles Deacon and Dries Van Noten showed a statement pink pout while Donna Karan and Chanel showed softer—albeit equally enticing versions. And for their spring collections, Dior Beauté, Lancôme, and Laura Mercier are all thinking pink. 

Runways aside, there are much more practical reasons to invest in the new “it” color. “Nudes can really wash people out and drag a lot of color from the face,” Dubroff says, “and peach requires a specific skin tone because it’s orange, so that’s tricky. Pinks are so much easier for many skin tones to handle… It looks like someone’s lip color brought up or down a shade or two.”  Not to mention—as shown to quite dramatic effect at the Globes—it allows one to diversify their eye look from romantic and fresh to dark and sultry.

But for a makeup artist on the night of a big awards show, there’s one reason above all to choose a subtle petal pink above all other colors in the makeup kit. “There’s no makeup artist traveling around from 3 P.M. ‘til midnight to make sure [the celebrity’s] red lipstick is applied perfectly at every angle. Some people you can put a statement lip on and know that they’re going to maintain it… other people you know won’t want the responsibility. It’s appropriate for a real woman,” Dubroff says.

So if the red lip evokes Old Hollywood, consider pink lipstick the modern medium—the middle-ground between glamour and… lip gloss.

Until next season, of course, when gloss becomes the new matte. —Phillip Picardi (@pfpicardi)

Click through the slideshow above to see Pati Dubroff’s guide to the perfect pink for every skin tone, and then shop her favorites (and a few of ours!) in the gallery below.