R.I.P. Rainbow Spill

Today is National Lipstick Day and I note it especially because I just found out my two very favorite lipsticks have been discontinued.

Lisa Eldridge’s Rainbow Spill was a hot coral that was easy to wear with lots of inherent panache built in. Almost holographic, it fairly sparkled in changing light much like when a TV camera quickly catches a sequin on a woman’s dress. At once it was a warmish apricot and then suddenly it morphed into a fetching vermeil.

It must seem silly to wax so poetic about a lipstick but there are so few colors that look well with my skin tone. I’ve never been able to wear blue-reds, true pinks or orchids. No cult-favorite Clinique Blackberry for these lips. The shades that look best on me are almost always out of favor – my choices have to have lots of warmth with autumnal hues and brown. To stumble across Rainbow Spill with its spit and fire embedded into mellow orange made me feel happy and hip.

The other lipstick that has been discontinued is more personal. I think I shall mourn it always and I doubt I will find another color that comes close. I first saw Tom Ford’s Twist of Fate in a magazine. I remember the color slashed on the page right from the tube. It was mine at the get-go. I tore out the editorial piece and carried it to the cosmetic counter the next day. That was nine years ago and I’ve since purchased it untold times.

My mother who vetoed a lot of my lip colors, loved Twist of Fate on me and I surprised her with her own. She always preferred a frosted coral for herself but the slippery light-catching and muted coral looked really wonderful on her too. Tom Ford’s lipsticks are very creamy but oddly long-lasting on the mouth if not in the tube. They are real lipsticks and the slight (very slight) gloss comes only from its special formula. Twist of Fate is not for lip gloss mavens and definitely not for those who love matte lipsticks. As for me, it was probably the most perfect lipstick I ever had.

When wearing Twist of Fate, one’s lips didn’t make the first impression as they did with Rainbow Spill; the color was too subtle for that. But invariably, no matter where I wore it, someone would tell me that I looked pretty. I believed them.

And how can you go wrong with a name so magical and mysterious as Twist of Fate. To me, it conjured up new love affairs, windfalls, and happy surprises. How could I not look at it that way with such a merry color?

Both my favorite lipsticks seemed to gather compliments but I didn’t wear them every day. It was almost as if their sorcery had to be tempered with more realistic and down-to-earth hues such as Charlotte Tilbury’s nudes (Pillow Talk) or Revlon’s Love That Pink (a warm one that I can wear).

It’s hard when a beloved cosmetic is taken away so willy-nilly without warning. Yesterday, I wore Rainbow Spill to tour a lavender farm and it was just right for a hot summer afternoon. On a stone path, two young women backtracked to ask what color lipstick I was wearing and honestly, when I have either color on, I expect that. Afterwards, I felt a twinge knowing I will be without my favorites in the future.

The demise of Twist of Fate came to me when I went online to buy another tube. The Tom Ford site and the department stores no longer listed it. Just to be certain, I called the NYC boutique and was told it had in fact, been discontinued. I was able to find one tube online and I hope it’s fresh when it arrives. The one negative about TF lipsticks is that their shelf life is not super-long. I could have searched for more but realistically, how many tubes of lipsticks can we have waiting in the wings?

Rainbow Spill is still on Lisa Eldridge’s website where all her discontinued lipsticks are currently on sale – small consolation for those of us who will want that one last tube.

Adieu and rest in peace dear friends.

Twist of Fate and Rainbow Spill below: