Clinique Black Honey looks scary in the tube. Wear it anyway

Every few months a lipstick goes around the internet and I get asked about it on every booking. Usually I smile, say something polite and move on. With Clinique Black Honey I get to say the thing I rarely get to say about a viral product: it deserves it, and it has deserved it for a very long time.

It is a Clinique Almost Lipstick, about $25, in a shade that looks almost black in the slim silver tube. People pick it up, panic, and put it back. That is the first mistake.

What it is brilliant at

Adapting to the person wearing it. Black Honey is very sheer. What you see on the lips is not the bullet color, it is a wash of deep berry over your own lip color. On pale pink lips it reads as a soft raspberry. On deeper, more pigmented lips it becomes a rich, quiet plum. I have put the same tube on a twenty-year-old bridesmaid and her grandmother on the same morning, and it looked chosen for each of them.

Looking like your lips, only better. Because it is sheer, it never sits on top of the lips as a block of color. It gives the slightly flushed, bitten look that most people are trying to get with three products.

Being forgiving. No liner needed, no mirror needed once you know it. It is very hard to apply badly, which makes it the lipstick I suggest to clients who say lipstick "isn't for them".

Fall without trying. It is the easiest way I know to look seasonal in October without committing to a dark lip.

How I get the best out of it

1. Use your finger, not the bullet. Swipe the bullet across your fingertip, then tap the color into the center of your lips and press outward. You get an even stain instead of streaks, and the edges stay soft.
2. Start with less than you think. One pass with the finger, look in the mirror, then decide. The color builds quickly and is much easier to add than to take off.
3. Blot once for a stain. Press a tissue between your lips after the first layer. What stays behind lasts longer and looks like your own lip color, deepened.
4. Over balm, not under it. If your lips are dry, a thin balm first, wait a minute, then the color. Balm on top slides it around and makes it patchy.
5. The cheek trick. Whatever is left on your fingertip, tap it high on the cheekbone and blend. A berry flush that matches the lip exactly, which is the pro move that makes a face look finished. It is sheer enough that it will not go muddy.
6. For evening, layer it over a liner. Fill in the whole lip with a berry or plum liner first, then Black Honey on top. It turns from a stain into a proper deep, glossy lip that lasts dinner.

The shade in the tube is a bluff. Judge it on your lips, never in the store light.

Who it is for, and who it is not

Worth it for you if: you want one lipstick that works every day; you are nervous about dark lips; you like a just-bitten, natural flush; or you want something you can apply on the subway without a mirror.

Not the one for you if: you want a bold, opaque, long-wearing color that stays put through a whole day without touch-ups. Black Honey is sheer by design and it will need a quick touch-up after a meal. For that job, a liner underneath gets you most of the way there.

If it is still not working for you

If it looks too dark, you are probably applying straight from the bullet to the outline of the lips. Go back to the fingertip, center only, and blot. That fixes it almost every time.

If it disappears completely on you, which can happen on very pigmented lips, line and fill with a plum pencil first and put Black Honey over the top as a glossy layer.

If it settles into dry lines, that is your lips asking for a balm and a quick exfoliation with a soft cloth, not the lipstick failing.

No affiliate link, no discount code — I do not make anything from this page. If you want me to find your version of the "your lips but better" look, it is a ten-minute part of every one-to-one lesson. Or send me a photo of your bare lips in daylight and I will tell you whether Black Honey is your shade or which one is.