Brown Lips | An Eperiment

 I first saw this lip color on YouTuber Erica Fae who does some of the most beautiful and simple editorial beauty looks I've ever seen on the internet and the minute she put this shade on I knew I wanted it in my collection.

The color is Maison from the NYX Matte Lipstick line which, is a formula I have often sung the praises of. The shade is slightly more grey toned than it appears here and I the minute I got it home this look just sort of came to me. So with the afternoon to myself  I started to play and I love how it turned out. 

Much to my surprise I think I might even wear this one out. Maybe even to work.

In addition to Erica's beautiful work this lip color came out of a desire for Lime Crime's Salem but an intense desire to not support them as a business. (Here's why for the uninitiated.) They are not the same by any means in fact, the Lime Crime appears warmer and probably is more wearable on a day to day. But...I feel like with the right look this can be a really fun alternative. 

I made sure my base was really solid with this look so I could capture the monochromatic effect that this color palette generated. I really wanted to just play with some variations of warm and cool to make this look work. The foundation I used will be in tomorrow's post so watch this space. 

I did my brows because I wanted to pair the lip with a navy winged liner and I think all wings look a little nicer with a well groomed brow but if you're not into that go ahead and pass on it. On the eyes I took my Lorac Pro 2 Palette and went in with just two shades. Lt. Brown applies softly all over the lid and up into the crease of the eye for an even base. To add definition I took the shade next door, Cool Gray, and ran it through the socket very lightly building up color from my outer crease all the way into my inner corner. I like that it makes the eye look much more sunken here. If you want them to be slightly more pronounced you can try taking the color just 3/4 or half way in trough the socket. 

Then I followed up with the Stila Stay All Day Liner in Midnight which is a beautiful cool Navy shade. I liked this in favor of black just to add a little softness to the graphic look and to play up the warm vs cool look. I added some black liner just to the roots of the lashes for fullness and finished they eye with a generous amount of mascara on top and bottom lashes. 

For the lip itself I opted to line with OCC's Cosmetic Color Pencil in Trick which is maybe a bit more warm than I would prefer. I might look into MAC's Stone and give that a try with this shade but I thought the color needed to be well defined and wanted the aid of a liner, this was just the closest one I had. Then I topped it off with Maison and gently patted the shade into my lips. 

I am just SO happy with how this turned out. It's always so satisfying when it works just the way you imagine it will. Even more surprising is that I can see this working for me in a real life way which was not at all my intention when I purchased the color.

So do you think this is a shade you would try? What left of center colors do you think you'd want to give a shot?