Chocolate, Chestnut, Coffee

Chocolate, Chestnut, Coffee


Despite the title, this is not a culinary post. Since last year, when I saw a pair of Baum und Pferdgarten walnut-coloured trousers, I’ve been thinking about the return of brown. I cannot find these trousers online any longer, though, so maybe I invented them to justify my belief that brown is becoming a fashion player again.

Fashion is of course all about things coming and going and coming again, in a slightly different guise. Brown, however, hasn’t really come for a long time. There have been beige and tan and camel – browns for wussies. To be frank with you, it is not a colour I gravitate towards most of the time, but true browns seem extremely desirable to me at the moment: the tones of milk chocolate, shiny precious woods and coffee with a tiny bit of milk all look fresh and beautiful.

I have not seen much brown around in fashion yet, but beauty is a different matter. There has been a 90s-inspired revival going on for a while now, but so far, most of the colours have still been leaning towards grey or wine or purple. This has changed with Dior’s autumn beauty collection, where you have a lot of straightforward brown going on. Instead of the usual taupe and greige (which I love), there is the rich dark chocolate of Obscure nail polish and the deep shimmery brown of the Parisian Sky palette. The whole selection is gorgeous (and I’m not usually a Dior fan) and to my mind more interesting than Chanel’s much-hyped red collection.

I very rarely get more than one item from any makeup collection, but this time I bought two (and I’m interested in the contour sticks and colour correctors as well): Skyline nail polish and Scandalous gloss. The first is a delicious creamy brown with a hint of wine and the second a very glossy plummy brown. I have not tried the polish yet, but I have worn the lip gloss for two days and I love it.

Now, I’m not going to deny that wearing brown on your lips is challenging. I’m a fan of dark lipsticks, but even I have to say that wearing brown is not especially flattering: I can look tired and a bit angry in it. But I love the idea so much that I find ways to make it work for me. Maybe surprisingly, I find glossy statement lips easier to wear than matte. Also, while theoretically speaking the truer the brown, the closer to trend, a hint of something else really helps.

For exactly those reasons, Scandalous is my current favourite lip product in this colour family. I also own two plum-tinged brown lipsticks: Chanel Rouge Allure Farouche and Tom Ford Guillermo (from the Lips & Boys collection), pictured. I must admit that they are pretty similar – Guillermo a little bit more intense and matte than Farouche. Both are lovely, but despite being creamy and nice on the lips, the lack of shine makes them more challening to wear for me.

You could of course avoid all this silliness by simply wearing brown on your lids rather than lips. There are many beautiful brown eye shadows out there and I know nothing of them, because I hardly use anything on my eyes except for eyeshadow sticks (including Laura Mercier Chocolate). But I saw these gorgeous Giorgio Armani eye tints yesterday. There are at least three browns. Just saying.

More brown

11 Comments

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  1. 1
    SophieC

    I must admit when I saw the title my first thought was yum and then Italian chocolate chestnut cake- castagnaccio. Having got over that longing yes I adore glossy brown as we move into autumn and especially in accessories such as handbags and shoes. I find brown lip gloss can be oddly flattering and both By Terry and Kevyn Aucoin have excellent colours generally- I will check for brown. The pictures are beautiful and so calm.

    • 2
      Ykkinna

      I was very unhappy with the photos, so thank you for liking them! I bet browns look great on you. I have planned to buy a By Terry eyeshadow stick or three for ages, when I make it to the counter, I’ll check out the lip products as well. Do you have any favourites? And I LOVE my Kevyn Aucoin mascara.

  2. 3
    Poodle

    I love brown nails and lips. I was actually looking at brown lipsticks in Sephora the other day but could decide on which one to get. I may order one today now that I’ve had time to think about it. I don’t have problems wearing brownish tones on my lips maybe because I’ve got red hair so it all balances out. Brown on my eyes is hard because if there is even just a bit to much red in the color I look sick and tired. I lean towards very cool and grey browns for eye makeup for neutrals but I usually like a little pop of color on my eyes.

    • 4
      Ykkinna

      Yes, I think brown often looks gorgeous on redheads, so I’m sure it suits you perfectly. Which lipsticks did you try? And if you like brown nails, it really is worth looking at the Dior collection – I think all the autumn shades are good.

  3. 5
    Holly

    Another fan of brown here! I like the very dark warmer browns the best, with a hint of purple or wine – like mahogany. I have a few winter sweaters that really call for brown trousers, and there’s been a dirth of those around for years.

    I used to wear a brown lip gloss, and I *think* it looked good, but you know how fashion goes. Sometimes we look back and can’t believe what we thought was flattering. Good heavens, I skipped around with a curly perm for years. Anyway, I’d be willing to give it another go. The gloss, I mean. Then again, my hair could use a change … 😉

    • 6
      Ykkinna

      Fashions of the past can be ridiculous, but the other thing about it is you can never truly judge fashion retroactively. Things that we now ‘objectively’ think looked horrible may have been very successful in the context they were worn. I certainly have many cases like that from my past: some things don’t age well but there were reasons I was wearing them. And I may have been delusional, but that was probably a collective phenomenon.

      I’m sure you look stunning in brown lip gloss.

  4. 7
    Eliza

    Apparently brown clothes don’t sell well, compared to other colours – I think I read that in Vogue or somewhere last year – but I’m always so pleased to see it return in the autumn in all its richness. Another fan of the new Dior collection here! I bought both eye palettes, woah. I’m a committed bright lipstick wearer, and was delighted to see how nice the brown lipstick in Sophisticated looks. I tried to pull off dark plums and wines last winter, in gloss and matte, and it wasn’t good. Chanel Rouge Coco Aura was a notable purchasing error, alas, despite how sheer it is. But this brown was a revelation. It’s a lighter shade than the lipgloss above, cool-toned but not dead, and the sheer, glossy and buildable formula of the Dior Addict range is very comfortable and flattering. It wears off evenly. It makes wearing bright oranges and pinks so easy (yes I have more than a few). It’s perfect!

    • 8
      Ykkinna

      I love bright lips, too – especially reds and purply pinks. I love any kind of lips, really, as I’m a fan of darker shades and rosy-mauvey nudes as well. Sophisticated is a great colour and I might still get it – I was hesitating between this and the gloss and went with gloss in the end, as it has more impact. The lipstick is more universally flattering and wearable, though.

      What are your favourite lipstick/lip product formulas?

      • 9
        Eliza

        Yes, it’s definitely a good starter brown for cautious types! I’m a sucker for Chanel and Dior lipsticks as evinced above. Rouge Allure, Dior Addict and Rouge Dior make up the majority. Rouge Coco doesn’t suit me so well, strangely, though Coco Shine is lovely (just not in Aura). I tend to vary colours now rather than formulas, so I’ve tried to stop testing out other brands to save my pocket, but a Nars Audacious or Givenchy Rouge-a-Porter sneaks in occasionally. Rouge Allure Velvet is my favourite matte formula – it’s lighter and smoother than the old YSL Pur Mats – and the Diorific range last Christmas had good mattes as well. Nars has some fantastic ones – there’s a hot pink called Carthage that shouts rather than screams like fluorescent Sciap, and it wears off very well. And the Rouge Coco Stylo is as shiny as I’ve gone so far, but I’ve paused at those YSL glossy stains many a time though! And oh how I loved the incredibly sleek Rouge Automatique by Guerlain, so refined, so smooth, so sadly replaced by a plasticky sugar-scented smudge for kids…

        • 10
          Eliza

          Final note: the Rouge Dior range has been revamped – it seems to have happened this week, how did I miss it?? – in a range of different finishes, including a creamy matte. Colours are the usual range of reds and pinks, but there’s also a green, yellow and blue, which look suspiciously like the Fix It Colour sticks for the face in different packaging!

          • 11
            Ykkinna

            I think it has literally just happened: at least on the Dior IG account they ‘revealed’ the lipsticks today. I’m going to research the shades more thoroughly now. Yes, let’s call it research, shall we :)?

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