Lip combos — essentially any combination of two or more lip products that bring together one complementary look — are all the rage on TikTok. Crafting the perfect combo can sometimes be a science, is often an art — and nearly always a matter of where you’re headed. With summer around the corner, WWD Weekend compiles a guide to crafting the ultimate lip combos for nights out at five of New York’s buzziest hot spots.
Le Bain
Meatpacking District: The Standard, High Line, 848 Washington Street
One of the city’s liveliest rooftops and a go-to spot for breakbeat and hip-house dance music (and neon signage), a night at Le Bain calls for high-performance makeup. The criteria is: products that can survive back-to-back humid dance floor anthems; club kissing, and a potentially ill-advised paddle through the venue’s indoor plunge pool. (Who hasn’t been so moved by a Zillion set they had to take an impromptu dip? Still, we recommend a bottle of Tower28’s hypochlorous acid spray be on deck, too.) Enter a durable Smashbox classic matte and Patrick Starr’s One/Size waterproof lip liner in an equally vibrant red. Remember when a woman documented how well her One/Size makeup setting spray held up whilst in labor on TikTok last summer? Well, we do — and it appears other offerings in Starr’s range are up to the challenge of bringing a similar kind of waterproof, kiss-proof, childbirth-proof staying power.
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Lot45
Bushwick: 411 Troutman Street
If you’re not a real yearner, look away for this one. Roughly twice a month, Bushwick’s Lot45 hosts R&B nights, when the doleful melodies of Keyshia Cole, Sza, Destiny’s Child and J.Holiday are on full blast for clubgoers. For a befitting, video vixen-esque lip look (à la Kelly Rowland in 2002’s “Dilemma” music video), look no further than Make Up For Ever’s multiuse pencil in shade 608 Limitless Brown, plus Glosshood’s Main Squeeze Ultra Juicy Lip Gloss, which offers a nostalgic, high-shine finish and taps hyaluronic acid and plum and vitamin E oils for nourishment. Besides, everyone knows that the proper way to belt out diaristic lyrics is while wearing a brown-liner-pink-gloss combination.
Little Sister
East Village: The Moxy East Village Hotel, 112 East 11th Street
A cool-girl night club calls for a cool-girl lip combo. Situated two levels under the Moxy East Village Hotel, this dimly lit enclave aims to emulate the intimacy of bootlegger-era nightlife and “evoke the feeling of being in a hidden underground chamber.” When Wass Stevens — the bouncer-actor-musician who oft mans the door — asks to see the contents of your purse, all it need contain (aside from your ID) is Merit’s signature satin lipstick in L’avenue plus Charlotte Tilbury Lip Cheat in Foxy Brown. Not only do both offer an effortless, berry-brown sheen but they also match Little Sister’s most distinguishing feature — a striking, copper-accented bar.
Carousel
Bushwick: 36 Wyckoff Avenue
A compelling case can be made for Benefit Cosmetics’ Benetint as a just-in-case base for any lip makeup look — a kind of insurance that no matter where the night leads, a transfer-proof rosy tint will remain. In this case, the product offers the kind of low-maintenance application needed to match the low-key charm of Carousel, Brooklyn’s new ’70s-inspired bar, complete with lava lamps, leather couches and book and vinyl-lined shelves. Gisou’s signature lip oil, meanwhile — durable enough to withstand many an old-fashioned; cushy enough to comfortably last through an hours-long yap sesh in one of the bar’s sprawling conversation pits — tops off the look.
The Box
Lower East Side: 189 Chrystie Street
If ever there was a venue suitable for experimenting with an editorial-leaning makeup look, it’s The Box — a club that can perhaps best be described as emanating the same ravenous energy as Jay-Z, Kanye West and Frank Ocean’s uptempo 2011 track “No Church in the Wild.” Given that every New York clubgoer will wind up at the famed burlesque-inspired joint at one point or another, it doesn’t hurt to be equipped with offerings from MAC Cosmetics and Pat McGrath Labs — two brands rooted in artistry and experimentation. MAC’s extra-matte Macximal lipsticks, for instance, offer a high-pigment base to Pat McGrath Labs’ Lust Gloss in Aliengelic, which serves an ethereal, almost 3D-like shimmer. Wouldn’t want to marvel at (while simultaneously dodging) acrobatic dance acts sporting anything else.
