Lipstick is the one piece of colour cosmetics that survives being bought sight unseen. There is no skin tone to match, the shade shifts predictably on the lips, and a miss costs very little. That makes Faberlic lipstick a sensible first purchase from the range.

Finish decides more than colour

Ask yourself what you want from the product before you look at a single shade.

  • Matte — the most pigment and the longest wear, at the cost of comfort. It settles into any dryness, so balm ten minutes beforehand is not optional.
  • Satin and cream — colour with comfort. The everyday default for most people.
  • Gloss and hydrating formulas — comfort over longevity, and useful in winter or on thinner lips, where shine adds visual fullness.
  • Liquid lipsticks — full coverage, long wear, least forgiving of dry or flaking lips.
  • Tinted care products — barely-there colour for no-makeup days.

Lines and shade ranges rotate with the campaign cycle, roughly every three weeks. See the current catalogue on faberlic.com for what is stocked now.

Reading a shade from a photo

Screens and print both shift colour, so the catalogue image alone is unreliable. What actually helps:

Work from undertone. Cool colouring suits pinks, berries and blue-reds. Warm colouring suits corals, terracottas and brick tones.

Expect it darker than the bullet. Pigment layers over your natural lip colour, so the tube always looks lighter than the result.

Find swatches on lips, not renders. One real photo tells you more than the whole description.

Three lipsticks that cover most of a year

  1. A satin nude a couple of shades deeper than your natural lip
  2. A berry or red for evenings
  3. A tinted balm for mornings when you are in a hurry

Anything beyond that is collecting rather than covering, which is fine — just be honest about which one you are doing.

Wear time is mostly about your lips

Dry lips shorten the life of any lipstick, whatever it cost. A gentle scrub once a week and balm overnight will do more for longevity than trading up to a pricier formula.

If your lips crack repeatedly, split at the corners, or react to nearly every lipstick you try, that is worth raising with a doctor rather than solving by shopping.

One filing habit

Write down the exact shade name when you find one you like. The range rotates, and "the pink one from last year" is not something anyone can look up for you.

Other categories are covered in the makeup section.