Beauty buy: Tom Ford Lip Color Shine

When it comes to Tom Ford, I find myself hopelessly conflicted. The Tom Ford Gucci years did nothing for me (I mean, those ridiculous feathered jeans!), ditto his recent women’s RTW. His menswear on the other hand is impeccable, and don’t get me started on the fragrances and make-up.

What Ford does really well I think, is not design per se, but branding. The packaging of Tom Ford Beauty is utterly sublime and you may well ask, who pays £30+ for a lipstick (Ford’s lipsticks are absolutely top tier at £36), but the answer is, plenty of us. In the current economic climate, a beautiful bullet that can be used everyday is for some, still seen as an ‘affordable luxury’.

The newest addition to Tom Ford Beauty is Lip Color Shine. For everyday I’ve been wearing Willful (above) a soft, creamy red infused with Ford’s unique cocktail of Soja Seed extract, Brazilian Murumuru butter and chamomilla flower oil (added bonus: it smells very delicately of fudge). The texture on application and beyond is ultra-smooth and the result is a wearable daytime lip that’s just shiny enough without being full-on glossy (Chanel Rouge Coco Shine has a similar finish but feels less moisturising). The only downside with these moisturising lippies is that they don’t tend to have much staying power. It seems you can either have super-pigmented, stay-on colour or a moisturised lip but alas, not both.

As well as the product itself, the luxe mahogany case is simply a joy to use if you love beautiful things. And I have to give props to the ad campaign. The close-up of the nails and lipstick is as mesmerising as any Tom Wesselmann painting