Red lips look best when your pout is moisturized and flake-free, so before you apply any color, give your lips a good scrub. After exfoliating, smear on a rich moisture treatment or lip mask (such as Bite Beauty Agave Lip Mask in Champagne, $26) to give your lips a serious dose of hydration.
Tip: When applying your red lipstick, the secret to making it last is to layer the color and then keep it hydrated throughout the day. Starting off with a generous supply of lip liner and a red-tinted lip balm can help you to avoid the madness of constant reapplication.
Now, you're ready. Go. Fly from the nest of muted nudes and frosty pinks. It's time to debut your dazzling red lips.
Red lips are the little black dress of beauty -- glamorous, feminine, timeless. So timeless in fact that the use of red lipstick dates back to ancient Egypt, when Mesopotamian women would decorate their pouts in crushed semi-precious stones.
All that effort makes sense when you consider the facts. Lips are the body's most exposed erogenous zone, and even the softest brush against their sensitive nerve endings sends a wave of information to the brain telling us, that feels good.
So, like a good push-up bra, red lipstick only serves to enhance our goods. In fact (despite the rumors), men systematically prefer red lips on women. Get this -- in 2010, scientists from Manchester University showed groups of men a series of random images of women, and concluded that ladies with red lips received "the most prolonged gaze."
All things considered, you'd think red lips would be every woman's go-to look. But it takes Cleopatra-sized confidence to pull them off.
Here, your be-all-end-all guide to finding your perfect red -- the one that will give you the confidence and allure of a modern-day queen.
