The AB Side of Phenomenal Aesthetics

When Victoria Beckham used NARS Audacious #Barbara backstage at the show for her 37th nude lip quickie, and when Lisa Elrich demonstrated how to save pale lips with Buxom #Boss in her masterclass, we have to admit: nude lipstick has long since transcended the realm of makeup and has become an aesthetic necessity for the modern woman. This delicate balance between ‘unpolished’ and ‘carefully sculpted’ can be worn in and out of the boardroom with a high-fashion suit, or casually pulled back in a morning café – provided you can avoid the deadly pitfalls that make supermodels roll over.

On the set of one shoot, when the makeup artist wiped off a matte nude lipstick caked on a celebrity’s lips for the fifth time, she finally told the truth about the industry: ‘80% of people are using nude colors incorrectly, they turn the catalyst of hauteur into a facial black hole.’ Dryness and peeling, borderline smudging, skin tone reversed gray… Behind these disaster scenes, it often begins with a millimeter deviation in the perception of ‘base color’.

Skin Color Genetic Testing Laboratory

▌STEP 1｜Vascular Color Decoding (takes 15 seconds)
Pulling away from the fanciful theories of skin color, the truly effective diagnosis occurs on the inside of the wrist in natural light in the early morning:

Cool tone alert: veins appear as an ionosphere-like blue-violet (matching the gray-pink nude of MAC #Paramount)

Warm-tone certification: veins glow the lime green of rainforest moss (locking in Laura Mercier’s Cocoa Doodle caramel tone)

Mixed Gospel: blue-green veins intertwined like an abstract painting (embrace the peachy beige of Charlotte Tilbury’s #Penelope Pink)

▌STEP 2｜Color Scale of Death Forbidden Zone
There’s a bloody rule hidden in the professional makeup kit: never let a nude be lighter than the color of your gums. Backstage at a fashion week, a stylist used concealer mixed with dark brown eyeshadow to save a model’s jawline that had disappeared due to the misuse of a 3 shades lighter nude lipstick on the spot – this extreme case confirms the ‘1 shade deeper aesthetic’: choosing a nude color that’s half a shade darker than your natural lip color visually rebuilds the three-dimensional architecture of your face.

Material Game Theory

▌STEP 3｜Molecular Cuisine of Texture
In the realm of nude colors, texture selection is comparable to a precision chemistry experiment:

The Matte Trap: the MAC Retro Matte line is long-lasting but amplifies lip lines to form a cracked earth (remedy: layer Fenty Gloss Bomb in 0.3mm thickness)

Pearlescent curse: cool-toned pearlescent nudes create a corpse-reflecting gray effect in warm light (see the disastrous red carpet photo of an actress at the 2019 Met Gala)

Creamy Gold Band: Chanel Rouge Allure collection achieves the natural softness of ‘just drank almond milk’ through its 18% oil content

A brand’s R&D director revealed an industry secret: “A truly professional nude lipstick will add 0.07% blue/yellow color powder corrector,” which is the optical magic that allows Pat McGrath #Flesh to suit both warm and cool skin tones.

Lip Architecture

▌STEP 4｜Canvas Pretreatment Project
Top makeup artist’s triple knot protection:

Sugar mixed with olive oil for circular scrubbing (breaks up dead skin boundaries)

Thickly apply La Mer Repairing Lip Cream and seal with plastic wrap (rebuilds hydration barrier)

Tap the area around the lips with foundation residue from the Beauty Egg (creates a vacuum zone for color development)

▌STEP 5｜Structural Strengthening System

Quantum Entanglement of Lip Liner: Tom Ford #Sable Smoke needs to be paired with a lip liner of the same brand, which creates a color overlay effect when traced at a 45° angle

Concealer Boundary Control System: Apply NARS#Vanilla 0.5mm outside the lip peak to avoid the “after eating lard” smudging embarrassment.

Blush Invasion Program: Apply Glossier Cloud Blush #Dusk to the center of the lips to create a gradation of blood color “after being bitten by a lover”.

The Theory of Makeup Relativity

▌STEP 6｜Rule of Visual Balance
Data from a 2018 Vogue experiment showed that nude lip color needs to be paired with 1.8 times the intensity of everyday eye makeup to maintain the center of gravity on the face. Specific implementation options include:

Eyeshadow Depth Factor: a mix of the right three squares of the Urban Decay #Smoky palette

Eyelash mass conservation: must achieve a fiber length that “falls on the cheekbones in side projection”

Blush Vector Calculation: Sweep 28° from the highest point of the apple towards the earlobe.

Master Cheat Codes

Two-color topology: Mix Lisa Eldridge #Velvet Fawn with dark brown eyeliner to create a ‘sun-kissed’ gradient shadow on the edge of the lip

Highlight Matrix: Use Fenty Diamond Bomb to create ‘3D coordinate points’ on the beads of your lips to solve the flatness crisis caused by nude colors.

Reverse Eating: Bite into a folded tissue after applying nude lipstick to precisely control the amount of color left behind to avoid the “color evaporation effect”.

When you finish this combination in front of the mirror, you will find yourself getting the “just finished Mediterranean vacation” nude lips, instead of the “three months of overtime” haggard lip color. As a makeup godfather said, “The highest level of nude is to fake the illusion of a one-second natural look in 20 steps.”