How to choose the ideal ‘your lips but better’ lipstick shade

There’s an internet-irresistible theory that your perfect nude lipstick will be the same colour as your nipples. So shopping for makeup should merely be a case of whipping out a boob on the counter and hoping to evade arrest.

The more modest among us are advised to pinch the tip of our middle finger, observe the colour change, and match that accordingly. As with most beauty “hacks”, my belief is that both methods wilfully complicate the straightforward.

The most flattering “your lips but better” lipsticks are semi-transparent, deepening your own lip tone while still allowing it to show through a sheer veil of colour. The mother of these is Clinique’s Black Honey, a true beauty icon that now comes in a sheer lip and cheek oil (£23.50), as well as the famous (and less shiny) Almost Lipstick (£24.50). Both give everyone the appearance of having eaten a punnet of overripe blackberries yet somehow remaining sophisticated. The shade – the sweet spot between nude and bold – works in a dressy or professional setting as well as it does on a lazy day at home.

I don’t care what they say – e.l.f. is blatantly paying homage to Clinique in its Sheer Slick Black Cherry Lipstick (£5). To me, this pulls a little pinker, less browny and rich, than the real thing. But it’s sheer and flattering and, for a fiver, perhaps worth a punt. If you’d like to steer further into the pink, Ilia Balmy Gloss Tinted Lip Oil (pictured above, £26) in Linger is an easy win.

A newer love for me is Summer Fridays’ Lip Butter Balm in Brown Sugar (£23), bought on a recent trip to the States but available here. It’s a moisturising balm squeezed on straight from the tube that lubricates and tints lips with a clear, syrupy burgundy gloss that enhances everyone’s natural skin tone. Even the creme caramel-ish flavour remains unexpectedly pleasant on the umpteenth application.

None of these are to be confused with “colour adaptive” lipsticks – ie balms that on application work with your skin’s own pH to deepen and darken, notionally to your perfect shade but in reality, to my most hated shade of fuchsia pink. (Ever stained your lips by drinking a Slushy? Well, that.)

If you want less colour density than even a sheer lipstick, lip oils are a better way to go. Clarins Comfort Lip Oil in Chocolate (£25) and Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil in Mahogany (£33) are both universally flattering and a low-risk buy if you like a glossy but unsticky finish and just a whisper of natural-looking pigment.