I am a lipstick junkie. I love the way my lips look with lipstick on. You will rarely ever see me without lipstick. I particularly love red lipstick. Red is just so classic, both retro and elegant at the same time. But I can’t wear red lipstick. Actually, I struggle with just about any lipstick color! Without exception all lipsticks eventually bleed on me, traveling straight into the lines around my mouth. This was even a problem for me when I was younger but it is even worse now.

My own matte lipsticks were the best ones for me on the market, they stayed on and held back from bleeding into lines longer then anything else I ever tested. Not that there were that many options to test. Regrettably, the direction lipsticks have taken over the past several years has been for the worse as far as my lips are concerned. Consumers want to buy lip glosses and lipsticks that are slippery, greasy, shiny swaths of color. In fact most lipsticks are little more the lip glosses in stick form. True creamy lipsticks bleed fast enough but glossy, slippery lipsticks are as fast as lightening into lines around the mouth. The term “matte” on lipsticks is mostly meaningless; they are almost always creamy or glossy, not matte in the least.

But with one fantastic new lipstick, all of that has changed. I am now in love with Estee Lauder’s Double Wear Stay in Place Lipstick ($22). It goes on creamy and slippery (which scared me at first) but it dried into place and didn’t move, not a millimeter. The lines around my mouth were lipstick free and the lipstick stayed on for what seemed like all day.

I bought and used the rose and coral color which were perfect. And then I went back and decided to try the red, which was a gorgeous true shade of red with a slight blue undertone. I put it on and the color was perfect, dramatic and so completely Vogue from the ‘50s. Then I waited. I checked my magnifying mirror every few minutes, then on the hour, and then finally, after about 6 or 7 hours it seemed obvious that this wasn’t going to bleed! Shangri-La for my lips!

Because I am a reviewer at heart and not one to share personal anecdotal information very often let me say that not everyone is going to appreciate how matte this is and if you put a lip gloss on top you lose the benefit of the matte finish and the feathering will ensue. But for those women whose lipstick spreads all over their face shortly after application this is one you simply must try.

Before I came to work for Paula, I spent several years working for various cosmetic companies, usually at the department store. For the most part, I enjoyed it. I taught myself how to do makeup, and developed a loyal clientele of regulars who requested my advice on what to purchase or how to apply it. But whether I worked at stores in the Midwest, south, or northwest United States, one thing was constant: women shopping for a new lipstick routinely gravitated toward colors that were similar if not nearly identical to what was already in their purse or on their vanities.

Here’s how the average scenario went: a woman approaches the counter with determined gusto and surveys the lipstick tester unit. I greet her and offer assistance, to which her response is that she’s “looking for a new color”. After a few questions to narrow down her preferences (creamy, matte, sheer, bright or muted colors, etc.) I make some suggestions. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t. After some frustrating experiences, I began asking women to show me the lipstick they use most often. It was almost always a pink-brown shade or a nude color. That’s fine, but then why, if you’re shopping for a new color, did they end up choosing something barely different from what they routinely wear?

I’d suggest going lighter, darker, more shimmery, pinker, or even (horrors!) trying a red tone, almost always to no avail. I have spoken to many women about this over the years, including those in my family and personal friends. None of them could give me a reasonable explanation for why they shop for a new lipstick color and end up purchasing the same type of shade they’ve always worn. So I have my own theory: the novelty and excitement of shopping for a new lipstick, that one shade that will give you an added boost and make people take notice (for the better) is just too irresistible. It gets women to the cosmetic counter, but when it comes time to select a truly new color, they back down and stick with what’s safe.

Perhaps they don’t want to leave feeling they’ve wasted their money (nowadays a department store lipstick can set you back $23 or more) or perhaps common sense prevails and they rationalize that what they chose is different enough to work, and hey, they really will wear it. Maybe that’s why free gifts with purchase are so popular: women can spend the qualifying amount on a product they’re certain they like and will use, yet still have the impetuous fun of trying new colors without the financial commitment. As for me, I learned that if I only suggested “new” colors that were slightly different than what the customer typically wore, she’d leave happy—and I’d have my commission and, more than likely, a repeat customer!

Did You Know? According to a survey conducted by Estee Lauder, more than 80% of women own at least one tube of lipstick; Women over the age of 35 use lipstick more frequently than younger women; Paula’s favorite cosmetic lines for those looking for gorgeous red lipsticks include Revlon, Lorac, Vincent Longo, and Trish McEvoy.

Ever since I can remember I’ve had a problem with lipstick bleeding into the lines around my mouth. I have always hated that flaw. I could never wear the glossy, slick, ultra-creamy lipsticks and lip glosses that make your mouth look sensual and full, that fetching come hither look that everyone else was able to wear. On me they just ran into the vertical lines around the border of my mouth creating a smeared, unattractive mess.

Yes, I tried all the tricks in the book, lip liner, blotting lipstick, using a matte foundation over my lips, keeping moisturizer away from the skin around my mouth, and applying products designed for keeping lipsticks from bleeding, which all helped a little, but little is the operative word, at the end of the day, or even by mid-morning it was all in vain. So for years I’ve had to seek out the most ultra-matte lipsticks possible. I should mention that even this wasn’t fail safe, because eventually, by the end of the day, my matte lipstick would betray me and end up exactly where I didn’t want it! Back then, this problem of bleeding lipstick was rare for a woman my age (I was only 16!) but it is anything but rare for women with sun damage who are over the age of 40 or 50.

Yet somehow this problem doesn’t change a woman’s desire to wear slick, greasy lip glosses and lipsticks that slide and glide in to lines around her mouth. I see this on women all the time and it is even detectable on female actresses of a certain age especially on High Definition TV (of course you would never see this in a fashion magazine because photo-retouching would never allow such a flaw). Yes, glossy lips look great especially compared to the effect of matte lipstick, there is no doubt about that. The sensual glossy appearance is hot, which explains why gloss is one of the best selling items at the cosmetic counters. But using a makeup style that ends up looking like you missed your mouth is as bad as stuffing your bra with Kleenex to look more endowed, only to have the Kleenex spill out on to your cleavage or under your arms is not pretty.

Having said all this, let me tell you about a “gloss” I recently found that surprised even me. While it still bleeds eventually, it does so minimally. I could hardly believe it. I tested it several times and several different colors just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke (sometimes a really pale gloss bleeds but you don’t see it as well). That wasn’t the case, it minimally bled into the lines around my mouth! Hallelujah! The brand is Illumminare and the gloss name All Day Mineral Lip Color. They do have a regular gloss and that one bleeds in a heart beat but the All Day one, it will barely make it pass your lips. It is worth checking out. One more thing, this All Day Mineral Lip Color does not last all day in the least, what a joke, and what is even funnier is that there is nothing about this that would be considered “mineral”, you might as well call my computer mineral by those standards.