Are you a Lipstick Lady or a Gloss Girl?

The other night at dinner 64 floors high above Bangkok, I marveled at the outrageous amount of traffic in the city and made the following observation in an outside voice: “If you wear lipstick, you really wear lipstick.”(Obviously, my gift for language wasn’t working at top speed. I’m blaming the ridic. case of jet-lag.) But my thought behind the declaration was this: Lovers of lipstick seem to wear it 24-7. As a certified gloss girl, I can’t leave the house or the country, for that matter, without at least 6 different tubes of shiny goodness (totally obsessing over Kat Von D’s Lightening Sheer Lip Gloss). And I swipe, swish and shimmer whenever I’m nervous, waiting for the train or feeling like I need an oomph. But the idea of layering on the heavy lacquer frightens me a bit. (Maybe it’s because my attempts always turn me into looking like a clown.)
In fact, I actually admire the Lipstick Ladies. There’s something about them that always seem so confident and so utterly put together. Maybe it’s because they effortlessly pull of deeply painted pouts sans smudges, tooth-wearing incidents or corners caking. Do they have a hidden application talent and staying-put power secret that I somehow missed in my middle school Girl Scout makeup lessons? Or is it more of a personality trait? I’m sort of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type. And the fleeting wash of color fits my mood changes. Do LLs love commitment and stability? What’s your take? And while you are at it, let us know are you a LL or a GG? SWAK. —Jenna Mahoney