Who looks good in red lipstick?

The short answer is winters—people who belong to one of the three winter color seasons.

In fact, this is an easy way to test if you’re a winter:

Do you look more alive in red, white, and black?

Here’s what that looks like.

As for which winter…

You’re probably a bright winter if you also look good in electric lime green.

Do you say no to acid green, but yes to red and gold? You’re probably a dark winter.

And if neither of those work—you need all silver/platinum, no gold—you’re probably a true winter.

Anyway.

When red lipstick is atrocious, it’s generally obvious.

Emma Roberts looks all angular and blocky. The hair is disconnected from the jaw and body.

As a soft summer, she’s a misty mountain goddess.

Red and black have no place in this landscape.

That’s on the cool and muted side—for summers.

Red and black don’t belong on the warm and light side either, for springs.

Kate Bosworth is a light spring, and she’s weighed down by black.

Look how beautiful she can be in sunny yellow warmth and peachy-rose.

Does a storybook meadow need red and black? Of course not.

So, red and black is especially terrible on the light seasons (light spring and light summer) and soft seasons (soft summer and soft autumn).

The medium-depth, medium-bright seasons—true spring, true summer, and true autumn—might look okay in red lipstick, but they don’t quite come alive in the same way as winters.

True spring

Swap red for peach-pink.

So much better in sunny yellow, coral pink, and turquoise.

True summer

Swap red for rose-violet (blue-pink).

As Christine Scaman points out in Return to Your Natural Colors, dark-haired true summers are especially likely to be mistaken for dark winters.

Emily Blunt is a true summer. She looks okay here, if a bit tired.

In pink lipstick (not red) and grey eyeliner (not black), she’s absolutely dreamy.

True autumn

Swap red for your version of nude.

A golden goddess in barely-there neutrals.

If none of those seasons seem right, and red lipstick is still okay-but-not-great on you, you might be one of the winter-adjacent seasons: dark autumn or bright spring.

Natalie Portman is a dark autumn.