Reader Question: Is Red Lipstick Too Much With a Red Dress?

Reader Jenny writes: I'm going to be wearing a sleek red dress to a formal event soon. It's bright red, and sexy, without being too short, tight, or low. I'm not sure what kind of make up to wear because my classy fallback is a red lip and soft eyes. However I feel like a red lip and a red dress is too hard to match and just too much in general. I have Black Irish coloring. Any ideas?

A red lip, a red dress, and a smokey eye would be too much. A red lip and a red dress is perfect. You should go extra-light on your eye makeup: maybe even just black liner and mascara, no shadow at all. But you need that red lipstick to balance out your face and the dress. Think how blah a nude lip would look with this! Also don't worry about matching the red colors of dress and lipstick exactly, they'll be fine.

I was going to urge you to do an google image search on "Dita Von Teese" and "red dress" to see how awesome this combo looks on Black Irish coloring, because you know she is never without red lipstick. But then I realize that she is entirely over-the-top anyway, and not what you are going for. You are just going to have to trust me that you will look awesome and classy and not at like somebody who used to bang Marilyn Manson.