How to wear bright lips.

During my last visit to the Mac counter, I felt very attracted to bright lip colors - that must be a side effect of Summer arriving.

Although I do wear reds and fuschia pinks quite regularly, I am quite scared by bright warm colors. They can be unflattering, they can make your teeth look yellow...

So when the MA offered to put some color on me, I happily agreed and asked to try a very scary but beautiful color: Morange. Look at that gorgeousness:

Honestly, I thought it wouldn't work out since I'm quite pale (I'm fake tanned to the max at the moment, and am somewhere between NC20 and NC25).

But to my surprise, it looked great!

So I thought I'd share with you the tricks the MA gave me and that made it work!

1. Warm up your skintone if needed, using a bit of bronzer all over the face: of course, apply with a big brush and a very light hand, and if you're pale like me, use a bronzer that has no orange in it. Mac Refined Golden (permanent) works well for that purpose.
2. Make sure you conceal any redness on your face, especially on the cheeks. You don't have to use a high coverage foundation, a green primer or a bit of concealer can help balance your skintone.
3. Use blush! You do need to have some color on your face when you have a bright color on the lips! Use a neutral blush if you're scared of color clash. Mac Warm Soul is a great neutral color fot that purpose.
4. Use a lipliner. This kind of bright color isn't forgiving and if you don't want it to bleed, lipliner is a must. With Morange, she MA used Temperature Rising (from the To the Beach collection) which is exactly the same color as the lipstick.
5. Gloss is your friend. You might feel the lipstick color doesn't work 100% you, but sometimes a touch of gloss on the centre of the lips can change a lot! On me, the MA used Lichee Luxe Lipglass, wich gave a nice corally touch to the look.

I have worn Morange several times since I got it and I really love this color. I think my next purchase could be Lady Danger or some other very bright color!

Do you wear bright lips? What are your favourite bright lipsticks?