Why is Beautiful Lipstick Better?

The saying goes that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Well, beauty and I have had a touch-and-go relationship. I’ve longed for it like a soap opera character yearns for her first love who is conveniently married or engaged to someone else. There is an urgency to meld myself into what beauty standards ("the beholders," if you will) ask of me and to change until I fit while knowing the truth, which is that I will never fit. Beauty standards are ableist, and I have a disability — you can do the math. I never thought I was beautiful. I never saw myself as worthy of beauty or love or anything remotely good. However, there has always been one thing that softened the blow, and that is lipstick.

I’ve loved lipstick for as long as I can remember. I’ve always thought there was something majestic about it. Lipstick was a sign of maturity, attractiveness, and a sense of self. Growing up, my mother didn’t wear lipstick all the time, but I would watch her apply it when we were going somewhere she felt warranted it. I would watch in awe desperate to feel the confidence and control I was projecting onto her. I didn’t know who I was — I just knew that I didn’t like anything I had to offer physically due to my cerebral palsy.

When the moment came for lip-glosses and the leap into preteen life, I jumped for joy. Like most of us '90s kids, I lived and died by the Lip Smackers glosses, and could apply them with ease. You know, the ones with the flavors that you secretly licked off your lips and found the taste of your hair because it was always sticking to the gloss on the other side? Yeah, those. After Lip Smackers came whatever I could convince my mother to buy from the dollar section. They weren’t the kind of flavors you could lick off your lips. They were lip glosses with shade names like "Cutie" and "Babe," the kind that felt almost too important to lick.

Keah Brown

INGLOT 40 YEARS OF CELEBRATING YOUR BEAUTY collection includes three lipsticks in top colours and a variety of finishes.

Check out and choose the option that best reflects your style - a delicate shine combined with careful care in the KISS CATCHER lipstick, a satin finish in the pleasant LIPSATIN formula or a defined lip with a matte finish with the MATTE lipstick.