It’s National Lipstick Day and there’s no way we could let this truly momentous day pass without celebration. Besides going out and buying ourselves some brand new treats to make our mouths happy, we’ve broken down the numbers on the lacquers that dress our beautiful full pouts. Beauty website poshly.com helped us dive into how Black women interact with lipstick, our most popular colors, and the cult favorite brands we couldn’t live without even if disaster struck. They polled 750 Black women and the responses were eye-opening.
When it comes to usage Black women are creative and have hacks for days.
- 91% sometimes layer lip gloss over lipstick, but only 32% always do (double the rate of non-Black beauty consumers!)
- 90% of Black beauty consumers wear lipstick.
- 87% like to mix lipstick shades.
- 86% use liquid lipstick (usage has doubled since 2016).
- 77% sanitize lipstick before testing it in-store.
- 63% of Black consumers use lipstick more often than they did three years ago.
- 59% have ever finished a tube of lipstick.
- 50% ever wear brightly colored lipstick to make teeth appear whiter.
- 40% use mood lipstick or lip gloss (another 30% want to).
- 38% have ever de-potted a broken lipstick.
- 26% have ever used red or orange lipstick as a color corrector for under-eyes (usage has doubled since 2017).
- 18% are fans of the squiggle lipstick trend.
When it comes to colors, Black consumers are more embracing of a wide variety of lipstick colors compared to beauty consumers overall.
- 96% are interested in nude or neutral lipstick shades.
- 90% of Black women wear red lipstick (compared to 72% of beauty consumers overall!) and 72% of Black women own 3+ red lipsticks.
- Black women are more confident about red lipsticks; only 41% say they worry that they can’t ‘pull off’ wearing red lipstick, compared to 58% of beauty consumers overall.
- 86% like the look of purple lipstick.
- 64% like the look of orange lipstick.
- 48% love the look of blue lipstick (interest has doubled since 2017).
- 23% would wear white lipstick.
- 21% regularly wear black lipstick.
In the realm of lipstick and disaster (not disaster lipsticks, that would just be cruel), we asked: If stuck on a deserted island, what’s the one lipstick brand you must have? The top 5 brands were Fenty Beauty, MAC, ColourPop, Kat Von D, and Revlon.
Though nude is the color that garners the most interest, therefore the most popular, red lipstick has the most interesting relationship with Black women. We were once told that it wasn’t a color for us (like blue eyeshadow). These days we not only embrace the color, but according to the data, we explore it more than our non-Black counterparts.
So we asked ESSENCE staffers which reds make their hearts flutter and purse strings loosen so you can shop their go-tos on this day of lipstick celebration.
