My Favorite Spring Lip Shades

I used to feel naked in a nude lip – like I looked bland. Somewhere along the way, however; nudes and softer lip shades won me over. Perhaps it’s because lighter lips without the 90’s frost is actually possible now.. although a frosty lip always makes me nostalgic. Nowadays, nude lips are chic and ALL the rage, and can either minimally play up a simple face or subtly accentuate a dramatic face when they’re paired correctly. The wrong shade quickly strips you of color and leaves you a little lifeless and/or anemic. Let’s not do that.

Outfit Details

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Finding the Perfect Nude

The key to finding your perfect nude is by first understanding your undertones. Sure we all have our visible skin tones (fair, medium, dark, etc.) but undertones are the key to figuring out how to make our faces truly pop.

Most makeup artists (MUAs) agree there are three undertone categories: cool, neutral, and warm. If your skin veers pink, red, or blueish, you have cool undertones. If your skin has a yellow, peach, or golden tinge, you have warm undertones. If you have a mix of both, your undertone is neutral. POPSUGAR has an awesome quiz that helps you determine your undertones based on examining different parts about you, and is great if you need more visual explanations. Take the quiz here.

In order to nail down the right nude for you, you’re looking for one that doesn’t turn your lips into a continuation of your face or mummy-like, but also doesn’t leave you looking too extreme either or you’re venturing to actual pinks, oranges, and browns. I have fairly light skin without any spray tan and even so, I don’t overly spray tan. Fairer skin tones are ideally paired with the pinkish based hues, whereas medium and olive skin tones really shine in the more beige and berry family of nude hues. I personally don’t have experience styling darker tones, but I feel like those skin tones look dazzling in just about any nude or colored shades. I’ve listed some of my favorites nudes below as well as some other favorite spring shades.

Frankie Rose

Shades apricot and pink lemonade.

MAC

Shade the Right Note with lipliner in shade Cork.

Maybelline

Shades baddest beige, nude lust, and purely nude.

Charlotte Tilbury

Shade Bitch Perfect and lipliner in shade pillow talk.

Pat McGrath

Shade Nude Romantique (so pretty) and antidote 207 (not showing correctly below).

NARS

Shade Orgasm and Sexual Healing (also not showing correctly). Also love the shade Schiap (super shocking bright pink, YAS!). I’ve also worn the shade Funny Face (bright fuschia pink) for years, so good!

Wearing below Maybelline baddest beige and Charlotte Tilbury liner Pillow Talk – quite stunning if I do say so myself!