We're Ready to Wear Dramatic Lipstick Again

08.10.2026, 17:58 allure.com

I’ve always been a lipstick girl. I vividly remember standing before the bathroom mirror at age four painting my lips ruby red with my mom’s Victoria Jackson compact. I still own the very first Clinique lipstick I ever bought (although it sits locked in a keepsake box these days).

Red lipstick was my trademark for years, but during the pandemic, I quit wearing it, mostly because my lips were hidden behind a mask. Then I had a baby, and you can’t kiss chubby cheeks 24/7 with your lips covered in Ruby Woo. Like many others, I swapped my matte lipsticks in favor of tinted balms and glosses, but a few days ago, a certain celebrity had me reaching for my bullet lipstick again—and now I'm noticing bold, color-drenched lips all over the red carpet and runway.

My first inkling that dramatic lips may be inching toward a comeback came courtesy Florence Pugh at the premiere of her new Netflix series, East of Eden. Her makeup artist, Alex Babsky, matched her lips exactly to her ruby necklace with the most gorgeous cranberry-colored lipstick I’ve seen in awhile. Because, like me, celebs have been skipping traditional bold lipstick for glossy finishes or blotted, barely-there stains. After seeing Pugh’s lip—paired with a flush of blush and a strong brow—I went on an archeological expedition in my lipstick drawer to dig out a similar shade.

Florence Pugh and director Zoe Kazan in matching bold lips.

A few days later, Dakota Johnson popped up in Taylor Swift’s “Patient Zero” music video, where both stars apply dark, bold lipstick onscreen to represent their mirrored experience. Several days after that, Johnson posed on the red carpet wearing a stunning crimson hue for the Verity press run.

Celebrities aside, it appears I’m not alone in my newly reignited interest in bold, bright, look-at-me lipstick shades. Commenters on both Babsky and Johnson's makeup artist Georgie Eisdel’s Instagram posts begged the artists to share shade details. (Spoiler alert: They're custom hues made from a handful of different products and colors.) But the desire remains, leading me to wonder if lipstick “back,” per se.

Lipstick never really leaves the trend cycle. There will always be people who prefer a traditional lipstick over a gloss or whatever gloss-balm-stain fusion is trending. (Swift, like me, made red lipstick part of her brand and has been wearing it faithfully for years.) That being said, it feels like we may have reached peak barely there tint and are craving something stronger. Makeup fans have been longing for a return to “2016 makeup,” which was all about ultra-matte, bold lips, often sculpted to perfection with liner and liquid lipstick. According to data from the Spate Popularity Index, which combines insights from Google, TikTok, and Instagram in the United States, searches for “matte lipstick,” “red lipstick,” and “bold lipstick” are all up; matte lipstick in particular grew nearly 19% from September 2025 to August 2026. And in their 2026 Beauty Trend Report, Pinterest noted that maximalist makeup is due for a comeback; in particular, searches for “bold lip combo” have gone up a dramatic 121% on the photo-inspo platform. In addition to that very compelling data, makeup artists told Allure that a bare face with a bold lip was one of their favorite trends for the 2026 fall and winter season.

Curious about a potential comeback, I reached out to a few beauty-world experts for their thoughts.

Teny Kureghian, global head of product development at MAC Cosmetics—who has been hard at work with the relaunch of several MAC lipstick franchises—says that she thinks people are ready for “more personality” in their makeup. “Glosses, balms, and stains have made perfect sense for the way people have been wearing makeup,” she says. "They’re effortless, comfortable, and low commitment as you get color, texture, and shine without having to think too much about it. But beauty always moves in cycles, and I think we’re starting to crave intention again."

Hannah Murray, global artistic director for Bobbi Brown, says that we've seen this back-and-forth trend shift “many times” before. “The neutral earthy tones of the '70s gave way to the full glamour of the '80s; the minimal '90s evolved into the glossy, pearlescent lips of the 2000s, followed by the matte revolution of 2010s,” she says. “Each swing reflects the cultural shifts of its era, and makeup evolves with them.”

It appears that we're ready for the next wave of lip trends. According to Alexis Androulakis, a product developer and one-half of the Lipstick Lesbians, we've “exhausted the life cycle” of the high-shine finish of a watery stain or glossy balm. She points to a few spring 2027 runways—including Simone Rocha, Marc Jacobs, and Chanel—as early signals that we're going back to bold, more opaque, longer-wearing lip products.

But what makes this generation of bold lips different from, say, the 2010s YouTube era of Kylie Lip Kits? “We have a lot more lip liner activity than we've ever had before,” Androulakis says, noting that the market has changed quite a bit since then, with many, many, many more products designed to make layering and custom combinations easy, like long-wear lip stain liners. Androulakis thinks the bold lip of 2026 will be less flat and more “nuanced,” drawing from the blurred trend that originated in K-beauty, with a velvety texture that makes it much more fun to wear than the super-matte, ultra-drying formulas of the past. Victoria Beckham just dropped a Rouge Victoria line of six demi-matte red lipsticks ranging from vibrant poppy to deep crimson, and MAC Cosmetics is gearing up to relaunch the Frost lipstick line, which includes shimmery, statement-making shades like rich plum and silvery-black.

And no matter how you slice it—or in this case, swipe it?—there's something inherently powerful about wearing a bold lip. “Lipstick can be polished, rebellious, glamorous, strange, sexy, or completely unexpected,” Kureghian says. “After a period where everything has been about looking effortless, that sense of transformation suddenly feels exciting again." Makeup artist and educator Kisha Augustine praises the “unspoken ritual” of applying lipstick. “It was always more than just what it looked like. It was how it made you feel."

Babsky says that while he typically likes to plan a red carpet makeup look in advance, Pugh's bold cranberry lip came together more organically. “I originally envisaged a softer, stained lip, but as the glam came together in the makeup chair, I could see that the makeup needed a more definite focal point, so I made the original stained lip deeper in color,” he explains. “Then, when Florence finally put on the fabulous Bulgari choker, I could immediately see that I needed to make the lip even deeper and more defined.”

Babsky doesn't follow trends. When a look calls for a more dramatic lip, he's going there whether it's popping up on your For You Page or not—but I have a feeling Pugh's cranberry lip is about to inspire a whole bunch of online tutorials, especially as we head into holiday party season. “The bolder the lip, the more confident you need to feel in wearing it,” Babsky says. “A statement lip’s not for the faint-hearted, but it has the potential to look absolutely show-stopping.”

Augustine agrees. “A bold lip now is uncensored. It’s intentional and authentic. It can be eclectic, yet minimal at the same time,” she says. “Beauty trends are definitely making their way back around—it’s the people that make it feel and look different.”

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