" Vanessa" synthetic lace front Top Boly

Bronze Goddess Lip Stick Cover Girl Gueen Collection

Cover Girl Queen Collection Vibrant Hue Color Lip Color in Bronze Goddess you can find this for
$7.26, at Target, Walmart, CVS/Pharmacy, Rite Aid, Ulta (ulta.com), drugstore.com

Tom Ford Lipstick

Tom Ford Lip Color in Bruised Plum is a deep, reddish berry—ripe and vixenish, but not at all goth. If you are wondering were you can find this lip stick ? Well Don't worry your pretty little head lol here is were you can find it. Tom Ford Lip Color in Bruised Plum.

$45, Bergdorf Goodman
(bergdorfgoodman.com),
Neiman Marcus (neimanmarcus.com)

Kanye West Strong opinions about LipStick

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, Kanye West posted a dozen tweets about "weird ass" lipstick colors, quickly making "lipstick" a trending topic on Twitter. In particular, West wrote that he doesn't like dark lipstick, which he believes women must wear only to impress other women. He kicked off his discussion with this tweet: "Please don't let girls start wearing dark lipstick again. I just think girls need to know that guys don't really like black lipstick." He went on to say that he likes either a classic red or no lipstick at all. Everyone's got a preference, but West's stance surprised us because he is so creative with his own style. (Remember the Keith Haring hair?)

Anyway, the makeup discussion continued, with insights from Beyoncé, who was in the studio with West (she told him that the "lipdresser" he referred to is more commonly known as a "makeup artist") and singer The Dream, who got in on the action by saying he thought a woman could pull off dark lipstick if she was wearing the right clothes, namely patent leather. We took West's thoughts to our deputy editor/beauty director Amy Keller Laird, who agreed with him on one point: "We saw black lips on the runway over the past few seasons. They looked cool on Yves Saint Laurent's Fall 2008 runway, all glossy and paired with chopped black wigs—but they don't translate in real life. They look too goth." But Laird doesn't think that all dark lipsticks are the same and she has a few tips for making deep berry and burgundy lips (and our new Best of Beauty winner for dark lipstick, Tom Ford Lip Color in Bruised Plum, above) look their best:

Avoid lip liner. "You don't want the look to be too precise. Better to dab on a lipstick or stain and then smudge the color inward with your finger at the edges of your mouth."

Exfoliate your lips. "No lipstick looks good with flakes in it, but dark colors especially look terrible this way."

Balance it out. "Make sure you wear lots of mascara so your eyes don't disappear into your head, and a touch of soft blush, so you don't look ghostly."

With these pointers in mind, maybe we can have dark lips that even Kanye West will approve of...either way, we're still wearing them.

Plum Is the Color for this Season

Plum is the makeup color of the season—in everything from eye shadow to nail polish, in a range of shades that that start at juicy blue-reds to purples so inky, they're almost black. With so many options to choose from, the rich hue can be intimidating—so the easiest way to pull it off is to focus on one feature. Over the weekend, actress Zoë Saldana showed how to get it just right, concentrating the color on her lips and keeping the rest of her face simple.

The trick to getting plum lips to look sexy and not retro is to keep them unfussy. "Vivid plum lips shouldn't be too precise," makeup artist Dick Page told Allure. "Skip the liner, dab lipstick on with your finger, then top it off with plum gloss." Saldana's shade is a pretty red-based plum; Chanel Rouge Allure Lip Colour in Emotive topped with Yves Saint Laurent Plure Gloss in Pure Fuchsia would give a similar look. But if you want a moodier, vampier hue, we love Nars Pure Matte Lipstick in Volga paired with Nars Lip Gloss in Strawberry Fields.

Maybelline Eye Studio

Maybelline New York Eye Studio Color Pearls Marbleized Eye Shadow in Carbon Frost, $6.99
Blend the sooty charcoal with the pearlized pink for delicate smoky eyes—or wear one shade alone when you want either dark or light.

Wet N Wild Idol Eyes

Wet n Wild Idol Eyes Crème Shadow Pencil in Pixie and Graphite, $1.99 each
These chubby sticks work as eyeliner and shimmering shadow; they're exceptionally smudgeable.

Best of Beauty Picks

Best of Beauty Picks: Cheap Thrills

For the price of one high-end, anti-aging cream, you can buy all 31 Best of Beauty-winning products on these pages. And they're not just bargains for bargains' sake. Each one—priced under $9 (and some as little as a buck)—has passed our rigorous testing process. They truly are the real deal. N.Y.C. New York Color City Duet Bendable Brights Eyeshadow in Island Sunset, $2.99
This is a brilliant purple and a hot pink—and together they prove that high-pigment shadows don't have to be high-priced.