By Adele Chan

I recently travelled to Tokyo for a press trip, and during one of the longer car rides, I was chatting with one of the clients and discovered that she used to work at Estée Lauder as well. We then spent the next hour talking about ex-colleagues and the beauty industry, and she shared with me her love for lipsticks; she said that she used to buy a new lipstick for herself every week — even during the time she worked at Lauder (and believe me, we had enough PR lipstick samples to last us for years). I’m not a lipstick person myself, but I can understand when someone is — a lipstick is that one makeup item that can instantly transform a look and boost confidence; and it’s really with just a slick of colour. And you may think that you’ve found that one ultimate lipstick that works for you… but then you soon realise that it’s not enough. One lipstick is never enough. And for this reason, I’m convinced that every year is the year of the lipstick; it’s possibly the most recession-proof beauty item ever.

Earlier this year in February, shu uemura launched 22 Rouge Unlimited matte lipsticks (matte has been trending for a long time now and doesn’t seem to be going out of trend anytime soon); and this October, the brand is adding 33 new shades in various textures, and these include four mixers that can be worn alone, or under or on top of another lipstick shade, changing the tone or finish.

While the new shades are hitting shu uemura counters and boutiques in October, we have a special pre-launch event happening on 23 September, where you can get your hands on all 62 Rouge Unlimited shades, as well as four limited edition “my lips but better” Rouge Unlimited shades that were previously a Korea-only exclusive, and are completely sold-out! The brand is bringing these popular shades to Singapore and they will be available exclusively at the shu uemura ION boutique from 22 September, while stocks last.

Look out for these five star shades from the collection:

From left to right: WN288 Ride ‘N Berry, RD166 Red Remix, RD160 Shu Shu Baby, CR330 Coral Minim, and BG965 Muted Rose

as well as the mixers:

From left to right: Glitter, Pearl, Purple and Yellow

And because the NYLON team loves a good lipstick as well, I had Louise Yong, a shu uemura certified makeup artist put an artistic spin on our usual looks, using the new shades and mixers.

Amelia Tan, Associate Editor

Amelia can pull off pretty much any lipstick colour. I know this because I’ve seen her wear every shade of the rainbow every other day in office and at events; so she’s really the perfect person to try the block colour trend. Here, Amelia wears PK368 on top and RD166 (a star shade) on the bottom. It’s a simple, but fun way to play with different lipstick colours.

For a second lip look, Louise chose BG928 (a nude-beige lip shade) and layered the purple mixer on top of it, which completely changed the colour to what you see here:

Tami Lai, Associate Editor

Tami loves a good nude lip colour. Louise used BG965 (one of the star shades in the collection), and added the yellow mixer just at the top of her lips, and a bit of glitter mixer at the bottom. The result is a interesting twist to Tami’s regular nude lips look.

Another colour that Tami likes to wear is orange; and we wanted to achieve a solid, bright shade that’s striking but still very wearable. Here, Louise mixes RD160 (another star shade) and OR560. The Rouge Unlimited formulas are incredibly blendable, and even after mixing these two shades together, the lipstick still feels lightweight and not heavy at all.

Patrene Mathieu, Designer

One day I discovered that Patrene is into cosplay. She dresses up for STGCC and is a huge LOTR fan. She’s also one of those colleagues I always see with daring lip colours, so I challenged Louise to do the rainbow lips from Pony’s video on Patrene. The shades you see here are (from top to bottom): yellow mixer, RD166 (a star shade), WN248 and finally the purple mixer. Just take it one shade at a time and blend.

And since I know this girl is into goth looks, I insisted on a darker shade for her second lip look. Here she’s wearing WN299 layered with the glitter mixer just on the centre of the bottom lip.

Nurasyiqin Sedik, Media Executive

When I asked Syiqin what her go-to lip colour is, she said some kind of dark purple or mauve. So we took the campaign “hero shade”, WN288 and slicked it on her upper lip, and used the purple mixer on her lower lip, with just a touch of the pearl mixer in the centre of the lip. It’s different from her daily look, but not too crazy to wear to the office!

For her second look, Louise uses the purple mixer again, but this time on the entire lip, and RD170, a dark red, just towards the centre of Syiqin’s lips to create a modern two-tone effect.

Eleni Kontorigas, Media Executive

Leni also favours a nude lip — but nude doesn’t have to be boring. Louise used the pearl mixer across her entire lips, then applied a slick of CR330 (another star shade) just on the inner part of her lower lip. Yes, this look is super easy to achieve.

Finally, we just had to do more block colouring and so chose two different, but complementary colours, OR540 and PK368 and applied it on quarters of Leni’s lips. This look is best done with a lip brush for precise lines.

shu uemura Rouge Unlimited, $38 each, available in 62 shades (7 Rouge Unlimited Sheer Shine lipsticks launched in Oct 2015, 22 Rouge Unlimited matte lipsticks launched in Feb 2017, and 33 new Rouge Unlimited central lipsticks launching in Oct 2017), at all shu uemura counters and boutiques.

www.shuuemura.com.sg