Curious about a potential comeback, I reached out to a few beauty-world experts for their thoughts.
Teny Kureghian, global head of product development at MAC Cosmetics—who has been hard at work with the relaunch of several MAC lipstick franchises—says that she thinks people are ready for “more personality” in their makeup. “Glosses, balms, and stains have made perfect sense for the way people have been wearing makeup,” she says. “They’re effortless, comfortable, and low commitment as you get color, texture, and shine without having to think too much about it. But beauty always moves in cycles, and I think we’re starting to crave intention again.”
Hannah Murray, global artistic director for Bobbi Brown, says that we’ve seen this back-and-forth trend shift “many times” before. “The neutral earthy tones of the ’70s gave way to the full glamour of the ’80s; the minimal ’90s evolved into the glossy, pearlescent lips of the 2000s, followed by the matte revolution of 2010s,” she says. “Each swing reflects the cultural shifts of its era, and makeup evolves with them.”
It appears that we’re ready for the next wave of lip trends. According to Alexis Androulakis, a product developer and one-half of the Lipstick Lesbians, we’ve “exhausted the life cycle” of the high-shine finish of a watery stain or glossy balm. She points to a few spring 2027 runways—including Simone Rocha, Marc Jacobs, and Chanel—as early signals that we’re going back to bold, more opaque, longer-wearing lip products.
But what makes this generation of bold lips different from, say, the 2010s YouTube era of Kylie Lip Kits? “We have a lot more lip liner activity than we’ve ever had before,” Androulakis says, noting that the market has changed quite a bit since then, with many, many, many more products designed to make layering and custom combinations easy, like long-wear lip stain liners. Androulakis thinks the bold lip of 2026 will be less flat and more “nuanced,” drawing from the blurred trend that originated in K-beauty, with a velvety texture that makes it much more fun to wear than the super-matte, ultra-drying formulas of the past. Victoria Beckham just dropped a Rouge Victoria line of six demi-matte red lipsticks ranging from vibrant poppy to deep crimson, and MAC Cosmetics is gearing up to relaunch the Frost lipstick line, which includes shimmery, statement-making shades like rich plum and silvery-black.
