Who told you red lipstick wasn’t for Black women? Who told you your were too dark skinned for a red lip? Baby, they lied to you. Red lipstick is power. It’s protest. It’s pleasure. It’s intentional sexiness. It’s the kind of boldness Black women have always had in us, even when we were told to dumb it down.
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Growing up, the women in my family —my Nannie, my Bigma, and even my mother — used to say red lipstick was for fast girls and for whores. And not in a whisper, either. They were loud AF. They meant it. But even as a little girl, I felt something different. Red lipstick called my name, LOUD. I admired every woman who wore it loud and proud. I remember my fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Brown — dark-skinned, confident, radiant. She wore her red lipstick to work every single day like it was a crown. I wanted that kind of power. I wanted that kind of confidence. I wanted to be that unapologetic.
So I started sneaking mood lipstick — you know, that little green tube that turned red when it hit your lips. My mood always turned red, and I loved it. My mama? She was not impressed. She’d find it, throw it out, and let me have it. But I’d scrape up another dollar and buy another tube or have my best friend Shannette to bring me another tube that she grabbed from her mother’s collection. . I wasn’t wearing red to be grown. I wore it because I knew it belonged to me. And now? I make it my business to find the reddest of reds — not because I’m a hoe, but because I’m a rebel with a cause.
I don’t just like lipstick — I love it. I own over 50 tubes of red lipstick, from corner-store classics to high-end slays. And when I wear it?
I feel powerful.
I feel brilliant.
I feel beautiful.
I feel like a whole-ass woman.
Black women are and have always been, the Standard. Let’s stop pretending red isn’t for us. Let’s stop letting society define our beauty. Black women — especially dark-skinned Black women — are stunning in red. Our melanin makes the shade sing.
So whether you’re in the boardroom, at brunch, in church, or changing the world, wear your red lipstick boldly. Because the world will try to shame what it can’t control. And you can’t be held hostage by ignorant narratives created to box you in.,
And if anybody ever questions it, just smile, reapply your lipstick , and ask, Who told you that?
Who Told You Black Women Can’t Wear Red Lipstick?
was originally published on
hellobeautiful.com