What could be a better power pair in the world of grown-up beauty than Cameron Diaz and Merit? Think about it: they’re both effortlessly cool, modern, aspirational and yet relatable. Plus, we love everything they do.
And that includes the moment when Merit’s most requested makeup launch of the year met Cameron Diaz’s face in Paris, and combined to create the perfect Parisian pout. Oh, la and flippin’ la.
Merit has just added to its chic line-up with Signature Lip Sheer Lip Liner, which comes in eight very slinky shades. We say ‘slinky’ because it’s an ultra-soft gel formula which ensures the colour glides on, rather than snagging on your Cupid’s bow. The finish is a very pretty satin sheen, which creates an immediate plumping look that Team GH very much approves of.
We’re phobic about brutal lip pencils (the ones that are either bullet-hard and pointy, or worn down to the wood and scrape-y) but Merit’s is a friendly sort: gently rounded, no need to sharpen, ever, and giving a casual, semi-blurred edge. It says, with an insouciant shrug, ‘Oh, I just did this in seconds’ – and it isn’t lying.
Cameron debuted Lip Sheer on the Stella McCartney front row at Paris Fashion Week, as part of a look her makeup artist Amanda Grossman called ‘daytime Parisian chic – fresh with a glow to the skin, adding a pop of colour with this lip’. It’s hard to disagree with the follower who commented, ‘She’s never looked better!!!!’
Lip liner is having a real moment among Cameron’s 50-plus cohort right now, with women cottoning on to the fact that it’s ultra-flattering. Makeup artist legend and Jones Road founder Bobbi Brown is spot on when she says it’s a hero for putting back the volume and vibrancy that ebbs away from the lips with age.
‘Sometimes as we get older, the lip colour fades a bit, so this is a great way to put that back,’ she say of her own (also excellent) Jones Road The Lip Liner. That formula started off with a fab edit of neutrals but has just expanded into four new brights, if you fancy a pop of colour.
A good liner can be anti-ageing in other ways, too. ‘Lipliner softens the appearance of fine lines and is the quickest way to achieve fuller, more defined lips,’ says makeup artist Grace Fodor, who’s the founder of Studio10. Her Lip Perfecting Plumping Liner is a double-ender, with a suits-all neutral lip tone at one end and a Cupid’s bow highlighter at the other to make lips pop.
And if you need another reason to draw the line, consider the fact that it makes your makeup bulletproof. Rather than restricting its duties to the outline, we like to use it to fill in the whole lip shape. We might even pop a regular lipstick over the top, safe in the knowledge that if it wears off, we have a safety net of colour underneath. Even if we don’t look like Cameron Diaz.
