Even a Prize-Winning Playwright Can Love Red Lipstick!

Just because she is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Tony nominee, mom, wife, Columbia and Yale University professor doesn’t mean Lynn Nottage doesn’t know the sweet agony of searching for the perfect shade of red lipstick.

So you would think that a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Tony nominee, college professor would be too caught up in all her great achievements, to above it all to even think about makeup. But you would be wrong. Playwright Lynn Nottage, in a recent interview, admitted to not only loving red lipstick but to be on a perpetual hunt for the perfect shade of red lipstick! I personally have never forgotten a particular red lipstick that my mother owned. Forbidding her instructions not to mess with her makeup or jewelry, I snuck behind her back as a little girl and tried it on and loved it. It was called “Earth Red” from a fashion line started by the venerable Eunice Johnson, Fashion Fair. It was one of the first national makeup lines created specifically to meet the needs of black american women. I mean, it was perfect and was around at a time when it wasn’t so easy to find colors flattering to black women! I never forgot it, but have never been able to find it as an adult. Now, I generally have two go to lipsticks. One is weird “mood” lipstick an acquaintance of mine brought back from the Phillipines. It is a bright peachy orange stick that turns to a bright yet flattering red and supposedly matches the skin tone of whoever is wearing it. The other is Revlon’s True Red are my go to red lipsticks. I reached out to a few accomplished african american women of my own to see what red lipsticks have bowled them over.

Portia Lyn Jones suggests the lipstick line from Kyshira Moffett’s Life of A Bombshell makeup line. I checked them out and all I can say is Yes, girl! The colors look amazing! Brina Hargo’s go to for red lipsticks that look great on black skin is the Lip Bar . The line, whose motto is, “Challenging the Beauty Standard”, celebrates bold reds that are vegan, gluten free, and paraben free. Shahidah Foster Owner of Beauty and Language blog, Black Girls Learn Languages loves the modern classic, Ruby Woo by MAC. Communications professional G.A. Gwendolyn prefers Fiery by Stila and and Cheryl Jiji loves a number of colors in the Vera Moore Cosmetics line. Eponymously named, the line is black-woman owned and has been around since the early 1980's. Moore was originally an actress and was one of the first black women contracted on a daytime soap opera, Another World.

Lynn Nottage's play Sweat is up for Tony for Best Drama at the upcoming Tony Aawrds June 11, 2017.

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