Why Lisa Eldridge's Rouge Experience lipstick is a world first
I'm in the carriage of a vintage Pullman steam train on the round trip from London to Dover with three other beauty editors, chatting to the makeup artist, fine jewellery maker and vintage cosmetics curator Lisa Eldridge about sustainability. ‘People ask me all the time, am I a sustainable makeup brand,' she says. 'And I say no I’m not, because if I was, I would be making cosmetics in my kitchen and giving them to my neighbours, who would be bringing them back to me to refill.' And that, reader, is one of the most Lisa Eldridge-ish things I’ve ever heard Lisa Eldridge say; thoughtful, unexpected and really quite contrary.
Who is Lisa Eldridge?
To catch you up, Eldridge is the makeup artist who registers colour in an unusually multifaceted way. (She’s a tetrachromat, which means she sees up to 99 million more hues than most people). She’s the formulator who drives her manufacturing labs up the wall with requests for more pigments and more pearl. And she’s the stealth disrupter who once told me she launched her brand with no business plan and will sit on a project until it’s ready. ‘I just bring things out as and when, but I’m OK with that as long as everyone else,’ she said at the time. Which brings me to Eldridge’s latest project; the Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick.
As I write this, I recall chatting with Eldridge in her Covent Garden pop-up in November 2022. I call up the transcript and there it is: ‘There's an incredible lipstick coming out next year. It’s a world first but it’s taken years’. This is that lipstick; two years on, five years in the making and a year later than expected.
Why is this refillable lipstick different?
The hold up, says Eldridge, was the refill. It's compact, shiny and fully made of aluminium, unlike other refills in the luxury market, which are usually half plastic and therefore non-recyclable. ‘Man, no, I wanted mine to be 100% aluminum,’ she says, ‘what’s the point of a refill you can’t recycle?”
Aluminium - which is infinitely recyclable - is the future of packaging, explains Eldridge. If you’ve ever wondered, as you knock back your can of Diet Coke or CBD kombucha, why ring pulls were swapped for slide-back mechanisms, it’s because the recycling industry was losing too much metal when the ring pulls fell through the grid of the recycling machinery. (If you’re putting small aluminium objects into your recycling bin, says Eldridge, wrap it up first in a fistful of used tin foil or one of those aluminium takeaway trays, so it doesn’t slip through.)
The problem, continues Eldridge, was not the aluminium refill itself but finding a way to click it securely into the case. Who knew? Eldridge rejected plastic and then she rejected magnets. ‘They said, would you be against a magnet? I was like, yes, I would be against a magnet. Magnets aren’t recyclable. It's not okay.’
Between a designer in Paris, an engineer in Germany and Eldridge’s Italian manufacturers a workable mechanism was eventually created and the lipsticks were good to go. I have one in my hand right now; a curvy, muted gold case with Eldridge’s logo on one end and my initials on the other, because yes, you can have yours engraved when you order online.
What's the Rouge Experience case made of?
As for the case, it's a blend of five different metals called ZAMAC and so strong you could drop it on concrete and it wouldn’t crack, says Eldridge. ‘I looked at my vintage makeup collection, and these aren’t throwaway pieces. The mechanisms are so much better, the materials are better. They’re 100 years old but they’re more sustainable than anything. And I'm like, how can we get back to that?'
What's the Lisa Eldridge refillable lipstick like?
Eldridge hopes that Rouge Experience is is a lipstick for life. It's certainly the first refillable lipstick that has found a permanent place in mine. I have two shades – the glowing blue-red Ribbon and the pinky-nude Ashes of Roses. Because the refills have little golden caps, one happily rolls around in a drawer while the other goes into the case and into my bag.
It's also incredibly versatile. ‘The formulation is completely different to everything else I do,’ she tells me. ‘It doesn’t have the full coverage of a Velvet and it’s not glossy. I've gone right in the middle with a slightly gel-ified texture and a blurring finish. It feels effortless and easy to wear every day.’
Rouge Experience is available in eight shades now, with four more coming later. Roll them on from the bullet and sharpen the edge with a liner and you have a high impact, luxurious-looking lip. Pat on with a finger or soften the edge with a fingertip or cotton bud and you have a blurry bitten lip or a kissed-off one. And they really do last, without feeling at all like a long-wear formulation.
Before we pull back into Victoria station, we talk about how much easier it is for a brand to label itself 'sustainable' without actually doing the right thing. 'We all need to do better,' says Eldridge, 'and to slow down a bit. Just take a pause, because there's so much makeup out there already.'
True, but I'm glad it's been joined by this particular lipstick. It might be the last one I ever need.
Shop the new Lisa Eldridge Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick
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