“What I love about lipstick,” Bobbi Brown tells me, “is that it’s easy, it’s quick, and it just makes you feel polished.” The beauty entrepreneur knows a thing or two about the category—she has been formulating the makeup staple since 1991, the year she unveiled her first-ever products–a 10-strong lineup of brown-toned lipsticks–to Bergdorf Goodman in New York under her then eponymous brand Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.
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Fast forward to 2026 and her newer venture, Jones Road, where Brown remains a clean cosmetics pioneer, is staying true to her roots with a line of easy-to-use, makeup heroes that break the internet with each new innovation—lipstick included. So who else to ask how to make your lipstick last longer?
“My approach to creating a lipstick is, first of all, looking at formula,” she explains. “Formula is everything, because if it’s not a flattering formula, it’s never going to look good.” As for the color-ways, “I always make sure there are lip-tone colors. I always make sure there’s a red, an orange, a pink, a deep and a burgundy.”
How do you find the right color for your lip tone? How do you find the right texture? What are common lipstick application mistakes? And most pressing of all, how do you give your lipstick longevity? Brown reveals all below.
Step One: Choose a Lipstick Shade and Texture
When choosing a lipstick, Brown says it comes down to three things. Firstly, your personal style. “If you are someone who loves a bold lip, it doesn’t matter if it works with your skin or not, that’s your color. Do you like a neutral color? Do you like bright colors? Do you like dark colors?”
Next, when selecting the hue for an everyday lip, the rule that Brown swears by is to match the lipstick to your natural lip color. “Everyone has different colored lips. I like a lipstick that matches your lip exactly. The color of your skin matters a little bit, but it’s not as important as your lip color. A bright color on me might be dull on someone else.” This, however, doesn’t mean cancelling out your lip color but enhancing it, and it’s important to note that the same lipstick can look completely different from person to person. For example, she reveals, if you naturally have pink lips, a neutral pink-rose shade will look effortless. A nude that’s too brown may look unnatural. Nude is relative.
And finally, it’s texture. “If you have dry skin and dry lips, you might want something with a little more moisture to it, a little more cushion,” Brown tells me. In this case, she advises steering clear of long-lasting lipsticks, which she reveals “show all the texture and dry your lips out.” Instead, her favorite texture is a combination of creamy and matte: “Look for a satin lipstick and add a little bit of gloss. If you’re looking for longevity, you don’t want a lipstick that’s a little bit wet when you put it on. But I also don’t like totally matte. I like it somewhere in between.”
For bold shades, Brown has advice for that too. “The way to make bold lipstick work, in my opinion, is to keep the rest of your makeup pretty fair–like the French girls look, not a lot of makeup but a bold lip. I have tried bold lips on myself. Doesn’t work. It’s not my style.” When applying a statement shade like red, “You definitely don’t want to over line because you’ll see it. Build it up a little bit at a time, try to get in the inside of your mouth and use a brush like it’s a lip pencil to fill it in.” She adds, “I would not put gloss on top of a red lip.”
Step Two: The Right Lip Prep
For Brown, the best prep comes from being hydrated. “Drink enough water day to day, or put lip balm on at night or before,” she advises. Adding too that, if your lips are seriously dry, “you could put an eye cream on your lip because that will absorb and then put a lip balm on top of it.”
As for primers or foundations before you apply lipstick, it’s a hard no from Brown. “I am not a primer fan, and I’m definitely not a foundation on the lips fan because when you do this, the white in the foundation is going to come through your lipstick. The same with primer. I’ve never used a lip primer. I’m someone who loves things clean, and I think direct lipstick looks the cleanest.”
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Step Three: Apply First, Perfect Later
Brown’s approach is to start with lipstick directly on the bottom lip, smacking them together and cleaning up where it’s needed. “The good thing about lipstick today is that it’s not about perfection. When I was starting my first company, it was all about perfection. And now it’s a little more relaxed. Modern lipstick should look relaxed and lived-in,” she says. According to Brown, brushes are optional, but direct application is the easiest.
Step Four: Lock It In With a Pencil
A common mistake, many will first use a lip pencil to line the lips and fill in with lipstick. Brown says switching these steps gives a more natural look. “You don’t want to see the line, which is why you line after and not before,” she tells me. “And then you can take the pencil, fill in the whole lip and this is going to keep your lipstick on the longest. The reason lipstick feathers or smudges is emollience. So by doing the pencil on top of the lipstick, it will stop it from feathering. It will also give you a little bit of a matte feel.”
Shade-wise, Brown reveals she likes a lip liner that is the same color as your lipstick, while she believes that its purpose is for subtle definition, preventing feathering and longevity, not to see the line. For that reason, over-lining is not something that she is on board with. “Women usually go over their lip line thinking they’re making a fuller lip, and you can really see it. So you don’t want to go over the lip line, you want to go just to the edge of the lip line.”
Step Five: Adjust the Finish
To lock in your lipstick look, the expert calls on powder. “When you powder your face, you could also powder right around the mouth, and that will help it from feathering. And some people will put a little powder on top of the lipstick and then put a gloss on. That’s another option.”
“Do you prefer a matte lip or a glossier lip?” Brown asks when it comes to selecting the finish. “Lipstick is all about your choice, everyone has different styles—some people like bright lips, some like pale lips, some like matte lips and some like glossy lips.” This determines whether you will follow lipstick application with a gloss. And to finish, “I sometimes like to take some of the lipstick and put it on my cheeks. This is one of those things I learnt from my grandmother when I was really young.”
Step Six: Reapplying is Normal
The contemporary approach to lipstick, Brown stresses, is about ease over endurance, and finding the balance of comfort and longevity. She doesn’t believe it needs to last all day, but rather fit into your lifestyle. “I don’t think a lipstick is supposed to last 12 or 24 hours. I don’t like to wear lipstick when I’m eating a meal. I’d rather apply something quickly. And I like a lipstick that you could pull out of your pocket, throw it on. I think that’s the most modern.”
