Poring over magazines as a preteen, it seemed like the key to success was a swipe of red lipstick. Need to go from day to night in a pinch? Want to feel like a bombshell on a first date?
It’s been a symbol of status and power for centuries, when ancient Egyptian elites would grind up dead beetles and tap the vivid juice on their lips. More recently, in 2024, the idea of “red lipstick theory” went viral, wherein creators The Lipstick Lesbians noted that wearing nothing but red lipstick can make your skin look more even and glowy. Heck, even the most famous woman in the world, Taylor Swift, is rarely seen without her signature MAC Ruby Woo lips.
On the contrary, I’m just shy of turning 30, and as it apparently goes in your Saturn return, I’ve never felt so disconnected from myself. I doubt my abilities at work, feel hopelessly single, and still live in a tiny room not much different from my college dorm. I’ll take anything—from my daily Prozac prescription to a swipe of red lipstick—if it means I can start feeling like a self-assured adult.
Could the theory that red lipstick makes you feel better about yourself actually work for me too? For seven days, I wore red lipstick—from a movie-star red from Louis Vuitton to a long-lasting liquid lip from Chanel to a satin, vampy red from Dior—every day. The results were fairly unexpected.
It’s exciting to embark on a new experiment, so my first swipe of red lipstick for the week had me giddy. As a child, the sheer thought of getting to wear red lipstick to my corporate job made me radiate with joy. There’s something so 13 Going on 30 or The Devil Wears Prada about smearing red lipstick on my face before waltzing into my magazine editor job.
Maybe it helped, too, that this was a rainy day, and I was yearning for anything that would make it feel less gloomy outside. I opted for a classic, blue-based red and kept my makeup otherwise very minimal. Just a little bit of skin tint, bronzer, and a soft blush.
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