Best Luxury Lipsticks

Charlotte Tilbury

The original Pillow Talk is Charlotte Tilbury's global mega-hit — a peachy-pink nude that works like a soft-focus filter for the lips. Its rare ability to balance warm peachy tones with just enough cool rose makes it the one shade that genuinely suits fair, medium, and olive skin tones equally well. The K-Matte formula stays comfortable and defined all day.

MAC

The lipstick equivalent of a little black dress. Ruby Woo is MAC's seminal cool-toned, blue-red — a true retro red that flatters every skin tone from the fairest porcelain to the deepest rich complexion. Its retro matte formula delivers velvety, staying-power pigment that won't budge through meals, rain, or a full night out. The standard by which all red lipsticks are measured.

MAC

Velvet Teddy is the warm nude that broke the internet. A peachy-beige with just enough warmth to flatter fair-to-medium complexions without reading 'too pale', its velvety matte formula delivers the plush, polished finish that made it an overnight sellout. This is the shade that proved a nude lipstick could go viral — and it's never really left the bestseller list since.

MAC

Mehr is MAC's most coveted dusty rose — a cool-toned, muted pink that sits midway between nude and mauve. Beloved by editorial makeup artists for its ability to make lips look polished and effortless simultaneously, its lasting matte formula never pulls dry. If your skin tone runs cool or fair, Mehr is the shade that makes everything else look better.

Lisa Eldridge

Velvet Jazz is Lisa Eldridge's warm-nude for those who know what they want. A golden-toned, earthy nude in the Luxuriously Rich formula that reflects Eldridge's decades of professional experience in choosing shades that genuinely flatter rather than simply trend. The matte formula delivers comfortable, long-wearing colour that photographs naturally and looks considered in person.

Charlotte Tilbury

Pillow Talk Medium deepens the original's peachy-pink to a more saturated, rose-nude that flatters medium-to-olive and deeper light skin tones where the original can run too pale. The same universally loved K-Matte formula, delivering a more confident wash of colour that reads polished nude from a distance and complex rose up close.