The Perfect Lipstick Phoebe Waller-Bridge Wears On “Fleabag”

An investigation

Have you watched “Fleabag” yet? If not, get out of here! Don’t even look at me until you’ve watched the whole thing. There are only six episodes out. See you back here in a few hours.

If you have seen it, you understand why we’re here: the amazing, omnipresent, slightly brownish-red lipstick worn by Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s wonderfully expressive character “Fleabag.”

Here she is wearing it with a few of those expressions. It looks great smiling:

Grimacing:

Wondering about the size of your asshole relative to others’.

My main thought watching “Fleabag” was “omg this is so funny.” My other main thought was “omg I need to start wearing red lipstick all the time immediately.” But which one?

Right away I ordered five different red lip products. (Generation G in Zip, and Colourpop lipsticks in Bossy, LAX, Creeper, and Creature. Haha. Fingers crossed!!)

Then I realized, with a nudge from Jenna Wortham, that it might be possible to find the actual perfect red lipstick worn by Phoebe Waller-Bridge herself. I would file a FOIA request if I had to. The people needed to know.

First I tried tweeting at the show’s Twitter account.

BBC Three said they’d look into it for me, but I think they probably have better things to do, and I was impatient.

I scanned the show’s IMDB page for its makeup artists and found Pippa Woods listed as the lead makeup designer. I found her on Facebook and sent her a fairly gushy message. Here’s her reply:

“A blend of oils, waxes, and pigments” !! Remember: Nobody famous is ever wearing just a single store-bought beauty product at once. I find that knowing that helps me feel less despair when I am in Sephora and the lower half of my face is red and raw from applying and wiping off 38 lipsticks.

But! Here, at least, you can come very close to the real thing. MAC’s “Dare You” is the red lipstick we’ve all been searching for. You can buy it for $17.