Make Up For Dolls lipstick - my very own signature red lipstick!

Make Up For Dolls Signature Red Lipstick

It's finally here!  My very own Make Up For Dolls signature red lipstick!


This is something I've been working on for about a year now, and when I had a chance meeting with the lovely Lynne Sanders of Cosmetics à la Carte at their Dublin launch some time ago, I realised that I finally had a ready-made outlet to develop the finished product.

What I wanted to create was a red that had a little bit of shine, but lasted all day.  That was a slightly darkened red, with a blue base.  That could look slightly more raspberry pink in some lights, and cherry-red in other lights.  I had started out with the premise of trying to dupe this red lipstick, but to be honest, I realised in the course of the journey, that what I was trying to get towards was slightly darker and slightly bluer and slightly pinker than this.

Rome wasn't built in a day...
it took a few goes and a bunch of trials and reference colours to get it just right

After a lot of experimentation and mixing, it would seem that I've finally hit upon the final result;  a blue-undertoned slightly darkened red with the tiniest, barely perceptible, flash of an orange-based coral as a top note to lift it ever so slightly, giving the appearance of a cherry-pink red, or a cherry-blue red, depending on what else you have on your face, your colouring and the lighting.  It manages to be a darker toned red and quite a vibrant one at the same time.  And I love it!

In all its shiny glory - Make Up For Dolls signature red lipstick
(Moisture Plus formula)

Best of all, it lasts and lasts and lasts... it's extremely pigmented and stains the lip nicely, fading gradually rather than bleeding and flaking away.  It keeps your lips nicely moisturised and I honestly think it will work on all skin tones and hair colours!

L -> R: Make Up For Dolls Red, Dior Marilyn

It's somewhat ever-so-slightly similar to Dior's Marilyn lipstick from Christmas 2012 collection but slightly less of a pink-red and more of a "lifted" cherry-red.  When I want to play up the coral, I apply it over a more orange-based red liner, I use MAC Redd lipliner, which is a very orange-toned red.  When I want to play up the blue tones, I use it over something like MAC Cherry lipliner.  When I want to amp-up the pink in it, it goes on solo.  Three shades or red, one lippie :-)

L -> R: Make Up For Dolls Red, MAC Redd liner, MAC Cherry liner

As I could decide between a matte or a glossy finish, the lipstick comes in two formulas - first, Matte Velvet (this one is a lush creamy velvety matte - look here for more info) and also in Moisture Plus (a moisturising lustre-satin hybrid - look here for more info).

What was also important to me was that this would be a long-lasting lipstick, and that it would feature lots of great ingredients for moisturising and nourishing the lips - somewhere between a lipstick and a lip care product.  These lipsticks will be hand-blended (if you're not offended!) by the fantastic chemists at Cosmetics à la Carte (see here for more posts on this brand), and is called Make Up For Dolls Red, and contains the best of natural ingredients - like conditioning emollients derived from palm and coconut oil to attract and hold moisture, plant waxes, Vitamin E, ‘Maxi-Lip’ peptides (a skin-plumping ingredient which help restructure the lips by stimulating the synthesis of collagen, hydrating the area and producing fuller lips), pigments, mica and other minerals.

As far as I'm concerned, it's been a dream of mine to produce my very own, bespoke, red, and this is it!  The fact that each and every single one is hand blended is a plus, and it will never ever go out of production either - this is not a LE offering.  Of course I'm also happy to entertain purchases if anyone is interested (please let me know via info@makeupfordolls.com), but this was fundamentally, at least for now, for me, me, me :-)