“What I love about lipstick,” Bobbi Brown tells me, “is that it’s easy, it’s quick, and it just makes you feel polished.” The beauty entrepreneur knows a thing or two about the category. She has been formulating the make-up staple since 1991. This was the year she unveiled her first-ever products – a 10-strong line-up of brown-toned lipsticks – to Bergdorf Goodman in New York under her then eponymous brand Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.
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Fast forward to 2026 and her newer venture, Jones Road where Brown remains a clean cosmetics pioneer, staying true to her roots with a line of easy-to-use, make-up heroes that break the internet with each new innovation, which is especially true of her lipsticks. Considering all the above, there is no one better placed than Bobbi Brown when it comes to sharing lipstick tips and tricks.
“My approach to creating a lipstick is, first of all, looking at formula,” she explains. “Formula is everything, because if it’s not a flattering formula, it’s never going to look good”. As for the colourways, “I always make sure there are lip-tone colours. I always make sure there’s a red, an orange, a pink, a deep and a burgundy.”
How do you find the right colour for your lip tone? How do you find the right texture? What are common lipstick application mistakes? And most pressing of all, how do you give your lipstick longevity? Brown reveals all.
When choosing a lipstick, Bobbi Brown says it comes down to three things. Firstly, your personal style. “If you are someone who loves a bold lip, it doesn’t matter if it works with your skin or not, that’s your colour. Do you like a neutral colour? Do you like bright colours? Do you like dark colours?”
Next, when selecting the hue for an everyday lip, the rule that Bobbi Brown swears by is to match the lipstick to your natural lip colour. “Everyone has different coloured lips. I like a lipstick that matches your lip exactly. The colour of your skin matters a little bit, but it’s not as important as your lip colour. A bright colour on me might be dull on someone else.” This, however, doesn’t mean cancelling out your lip colour but enhancing it, and it’s important to note that the same lipstick can look completely different from person to person. For example, she reveals, if you naturally have pink lips, a neutral pink-rose shade will look effortless. A nude that’s too brown may look unnatural. Nude is relative.
And finally, it’s texture. “If you have dry skin and dry lips, you might want something with a little more moisture to it, a little more cushion,” Brown tells me. In this case, she advises steering clear of long-lasting lipsticks, which she reveals “show all the texture and dry your lips out.” Instead, her favourite texture is a combination of creamy and matte – “Look for a satin lipstick and add a little bit of gloss. If you’re looking for longevity, you don’t want a lipstick that’s a little bit wet when you put it on. But I also don’t like totally matte. I like it somewhere in between.”
For bold shades, Brown has advice for that too. “The way to make bold lipstick work, in my opinion, is to keep the rest of your make-up pretty fair – like the French girls look, not a lot of make-up but a bold lip. I have tried bold lips on myself. Doesn’t work. It’s not my style.” When applying a statement shade like red, “You definitely don’t want to over line because you’ll see it. Build it up a little bit at a time, try to get in the inside of your mouth and use a brush like it’s a lip pencil to fill it in.” She adds, “I would not put gloss on top of a red lip.”
Violette_FR
Violette FR Bisou Balm
- Why we love it: There isn’t a lipstick on this list quite like Violette FR’s Bisou Balm, the brainchild of esteemed French make-up artist Violette Serrat. Distilling the distinctively French, effortlessly blurred lip look into a bullet format, each swipe lays on a soft focus layer of pigment that is matte yet moisturising, and never looks overdone. “In France we have ‘bouche mordue’, or bitten lips, a way of applying lip balm and lipstick then blotting with tissue to create a flushed look,” she says. “I created Bisou Balm to streamline those steps into a single product.” Thanks to its blurring finish, it’s incredibly flattering on lined lips and a favourite of Vogue beauty writer Tracy Achonwa for its easy elegance. “This balm gives you the kind of lip flush that you can usually only finesse through careful blotting, and though it is lightweight, it doesn’t budge or transfer once applied,” she says. “I’ve never used a lipstick formula like it.”
- Texture: hydrating but with the silky feeling of a make-up primer
- Finish: sheer matte finish
- Shade range: 6
Victoria Beckham
Posh Lipstick
- Why we love it: “Victoria Beckham Posh Lipstick is super rich and hydrating with oils and superfood ingredients,” Allen says, referring to its pomegranate-jojoba complex and avocado, coconut, and rosehip oils. “This product is not only pretty with a soft shine as its finish; it’s healing with its plant-based ingredients.” Anthony is also impressed with the Posh lipstick. “These shades are very wearable, very cushy, and have a good amount of pigment without being overbearing. I love how these feel,” he says. Make-up artist Jenny Patinkin adds to the chorus of industry-insider approval: “I love this lipstick for mature lips,” she says. “The sheen is subtle and gorgeous, it feels lovely to apply, the shade range is beautiful and versatile, and the packaging is so chic.”
- Texture: Creamy and moisturising, with the lightweight feel of a balm
- Finish: Subtle shine
- Shade range: 13
For Brown, the best prep comes from being hydrated. “Drink enough water day to day, or put lip balm on at night or before,” she advises. Adding too that, if your lips are seriously dry, “you could put an eye cream on your lip because that will absorb and then put a lip balm on top of it.”
As for primers or foundations before you apply lipstick, it’s a hard no from Brown. “I am not a primer fan, and I’m definitely not a foundation on the lips fan because when you do this, the white in the foundation is going to come through your lipstick. The same with primer. I’ve never used a lip primer. I’m someone who loves things clean, and I think direct lipstick looks the cleanest.”
Laneige
Lip Sleeping Mask
If you try one product from the K-Beauty brand Laneige, make it the viral Lip Sleeping Mask. Like slugging, but for the lips, this balm envelops dry skin in fruit extracts and nourishing oils at night to garner pillow-soft lips by morning. Formulated with vitamin C to boost collagen production and repair damaged skin, it’s one you can count on to completely renovate chapped lips.
Brown’s approach is to start with lipstick directly on the bottom lip, smacking them together and cleaning up where it’s needed. “The good thing about lipstick today is that it’s not about perfection. When I was starting my first company, it was all about perfection. And now it’s a little more relaxed. Modern lipstick should look relaxed and lived-in,” she says. According to Brown, brushes are optional, but direct application is the easiest.
A common mistake, many will first use a lip pencil to line the lips and fill in with lipstick. Brown says switching these steps gives a more natural look. “You don't want to see the line, which is why you line after and not before,” she tells me. “And then you can take the pencil, fill in the whole lip and this is going to keep your lipstick on the longest. The reason lipstick feathers or smudges is emolliency. So by doing the pencil on top of the lipstick, it will stop it from feathering. It will also give you a little bit of a matte feel.”
Shade-wise, Brown reveals she likes a lip liner that is the same colour as your lipstick, while she believes that its purpose is for subtle definition, preventing feathering and longevity, not to see the line. For that reason, over-lining is not something that she is on board with. “Women usually go over their lip line thinking they’re making a fuller lip, and you can really see it. So you don’t want to go over the lip line, you want to go just to the edge of the lip line.”
Charlotte Tilbury
Lip Cheat Contour Duo
- Why we love it: You know you’re onto a winning lip combo when your colleagues notice. That was the case for me when I showed up with a perfected pout thanks to a mix of the Charlotte Tilbury Lip Cheat and Pillow Talk lipstick. More specifically for me, the Lip Cheat Contour Duo in medium is the winner. The brand makes it easy with a double-ended pencil. On one side is “sculpt” to outline the lips, while the reverse is fill to create a blended out, contoured and naturally plump look. Khloe Kardashian, Phoebe Dynevor and Kate Moss are fans too, the latter dubbing the product “the pencil of youth”.
- Finish: Powder-soft
- Shades: Four
- Key ingredients: Plump-Effect Peptides
Makeup Forever
Artist Color Pencil Extreme
- Why we love it: In her Vogue Beauty Secrets video, Dua Lipa reveals that the Makeup Forever Artist Color Pencil Extreme is her lip liner of choice in the 600 Anywere Caffeine shade. The singer-songwriter proves herself to be a fan of the drugstore hero, which she uses to outline her lips to give a “really nice plump look”, before layering up with a creamy lipstick. Lipa is not alone; this is also the hue of choice for Hailey Bieber to contour her pout, while Alexa Demie uses both the Whatever Walnut and Endless Cacao. The formula is defined by its long-wear, creamy pigment.
- Finish: Matte
- Shades: 8
- Key ingredients: Jojoba oil
“Do you prefer a matte lip or a glossier lip?” Brown asks when it comes to selecting the finish. “Lipstick is all about your choice, everyone has different styles, some people like bright lips, some like pale lips, some like matte lips and some like glossy lips.” This determines whether you will follow lipstick application with a gloss.
To lock in your lipstick look, the expert calls on powder. “When you powder your face, you could also powder right around the mouth, and that will help it from feathering. And some people will put a little powder on top of the lipstick and then put a gloss on. That’s another option.”
- Why we love it: For all their virtues, even the best-setting powders can leave you looking a little flat. Enter this rose-tinted creation from Bobbi Brown’s Jones Road, which brings life back to the face with a wash of sheer coverage. Perfect for keeping dewy cream blushes exactly where you put them, it also controls oil and shine for added longevity.
- Pros: brings healthy colour back to the face | keeps shine under control | gives staying power to cream blush products | available in several shades
- Cons: not the best for full face use, unless you like a tickled pink look
And to finish, “I sometimes like to take some of the lipstick and put it on my cheeks. This is one of those things I learnt from my grandmother when I was really young.”
The contemporary approach to lipstick, Brown stresses, is about ease over endurance, and finding the balance of comfort and longevity. She doesn’t believe it needs to last all day, but rather fit into your lifestyle. “I don’t think a lipstick is supposed to last 12 or 24 hours. I don’t like to wear lipstick when I’m eating a meal. I’d rather apply something quickly. And I like a lipstick that you could pull out of your pocket, throw it on. I think that’s the most modern.”