It’s 2016, and the Kylie Lip Kit you camped out for is finally in your hands. You line your lips, swipe on the colour for the first time, and pause to admire yourself in the mirror—it complements your smokey cut crease just as you’d imagined it. It even stays on through your meal, and looks good with the Snapchat dog filter.
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If you remember it all too well, you can come out of hiding now. Lip oils, glosses and balms have been having their moment everywhere, but there’s just something about a matte lip that transcends time. Our favourite ‘90s icons were always wearing it: you’d spot Drew Barrymore in a vampy brown, or Gwen Stefani in an arresting brick red. In the 2000s, everyone from Rihanna to Paris Hilton was rocking a concealer lip. Then, the King Kylie era; every decade or so, we find ourselves coming back to the matte lip.
So maybe it’s nostalgia, or simply a desire for something different—regardless, fwee launched their pudding pots and they flew off the shelves. Moussey in texture, with an accompanying silicone brush for a blotted application, they found a way to marry Eastern gradient lips with Western pigments. Ever since then, matte lip products have been sneaking their way into the gondolas again, which begs the question: are matte lips officially back?
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To Sahur Saleim—pro make-up artist and founder of Sahur’s Art—the answer is yes. “People want new colours, more pigmentation, and to have their lip products last longer on their face,” she explains. In fact, matte lips have been the wedding day go-to for Saleim’s clients, thanks to its subtle ability to elevate any look.
2016 may have given us the liquid lipstick, but innovation has reinterpreted it in new forms and textures. Gone are the days that we are looking only for opaque, budge-proof pigment in one swipe—the versatility of the matte lip has extended to multi-use products that double as blush. Velvety soft and nourished with moisturising ingredients, the 2026 matte lip is more forgiving on the pout than they used to be. Below, see Vogue Singapore’s round-up of the matte lips that are making a convincing case for the comeback.
