The art of lipstick: making the best, better

By John Lee, Head of Colour Product Development at the Avon Innovation Centre

We sell 3 lipsticks every second around the world, so it’s fair to say, we know lipstick. But, how do you take your best-selling lipstick and make it better? It’s a challenge we were excited to take on.

Comfort versus colour payoff is a well-known consumer tension with lipstick, especially matte ones. Sound familiar? We’ve always listened to our customers and Reps to make sure we best meet their needs and create products that they love and are proud to use. Our customers and Reps want fuss free make-up that can keep up with them and let’s not forget, they’re savvy: they want the best quality at accessible prices – that’s what we’re all about.

We listened and have made a next generation lipstick and improved the formula to develop a creamier, smoother texture for ultimate comfort, colour and ease of application. It’s even got SPF15 to provide delicate lips with protection from the sun. Here’s how we did it …

There are three key ingredients in a lipstick: waxes for structure, emollients for comfort and creaminess and pigments for colour. When you want a matte finish, you have to add tiny particles of solid materials to create a rough surface so it diffuses the light. Most of our competitors use tiny solid materials to generate a matte appearance – they certainly leave a matte finish but they come at a cost: dryness. This is because they soak up the oils meaning the customer can be left with dry lips and an uncomfortable experience.

We do things differently. We use a proprietary cross polymer matrix which is inherently matte. It means you need fewer solid materials, delivering matte colour without the dryness. For the next generation Avon Ultra Matte Lipstick we’ve refined that cross polymer matrix even further and introduced a new blend of oils for an even more comfortable product that is 100% matte.

Making the best, even better, was by no means an easy journey but as scientists, we relish a challenge. We had to use our research and development heritage and scientific knowhow to optimise the blends of the cross polymer matrix and the oils to make sure that the product balanced the benefits our customers want from their lipstick: colour, finish, comfort and ease of application.

The ingredients all need to work together perfectly to deliver the best colour, whether you go mad for a matte finish or crazy for a creamy one. We not only upgraded the emollients and fragrance in the creamy finish formula but we leveraged fine translucent structuring agents too. Structuring agents are critical to keep the lipstick in the right shape and form but the difference with ours is that they’re translucent so pigment in any of the 60 shades isn’t compromised at all – you get more colour and you get the colour that you see.

We’re proud of challenging the status quo and making a best seller even better. Consumers in all of our trials loved it and expressed that since lipstick is such an emotional product – a mood boost, confidence when it’s needed most – it’s important that it does what it’s meant to without a fuss. So whyever you wear lipstick, you can be sure we’ve put our best science and knowhow into creating new Avon Ultra Lipstick. Will you try it?

To learn more about Avon Ultra Lipstick please visit Avon in your country here .