Are you PINK or RED?
I used to always wear red lipstick in my early 20’s. I even convinced one of my closest friends to start wearing it, when she never wore any lipstick at all before it. I remember she and I being on a business trip together in Ottawa and wandering through the heavily-perfumed cosmetics floor of an upscale-department store, looking for the perfect shade of red, stepping way outside of her comfort zone.
Then I got married, and I stopped wearing red. My husband at the time didn’t like it. A few short years later, we divorced, and a couple of years after that, I remarried. And that new husband also didn’t like it either. So I never wore it again.
Until now.
Last week my boyfriend and I booked our next vacation to Oaxaca, Mexico to celebrate his upcoming birthday in August. And he said to me, “you need to get a bright red lipstick for the trip. I know you usually like your pink lipstick but to be so much brighter would look great on you!”.
Oh baggage… we all have it. We hear the voice of someone telling us we aren’t good enough, we don’t have what it takes, we shouldn’t shine that bright (so as not to upstage them, I’m now thinking…). Red is not just a color, it’s a statement. Red is often used in graphic design because it pulls your eye right in and commands you to look. When a woman wears red lips, she knows she is deserving of your attention. Women like Marilyn Monroe and Taylor Swift know you are looking, and they don't want you to look away. They know that the lips will get you to take note of them, but more than that - they know you won’t be able to turn away, and the longer you look the more you’ll see just how powerful and beautiful and confident they are beneath the surface.
It’s time for us to be our brightest selves! Where are you listening to the voice of someone else putting you down, asking you to be a bit less than you are, or telling you that your skin or your clothes or your intellect aren’t measuring up? I should add that when my boyfriend suggested the red lipstick he also said “but only if you want to, because you should always do exactly what you want to do for yourself, not for me”. Wow - he gets it.
So let’s wear the red lipstick, or the bikini, or get bangs (actually maybe not bangs, that one is hard to pull off for most of us LOL). Start the business or the charity or the hobby that you want to start. Because NOBODY should have to give you permission to do what you really love to do for yourself.
No more pale pink hiding in the background, ladies. Let’s be bold, and apologize to no one for it.
XO,
Karen
