“Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was my red lipstick icon: She wore it nonchalantly with a bare face and scraped-back hair,” Annabel Jones famously wrote in The Telegraph of the timeless model muse. “But no matter how hard I tried to emulate her insouciance, on me red has always felt too conspicuous, too sultry. I know I’m not alone—finding the right red is full of challenges.”
In a quest to search out the “right shade,” a fast gander on Google shares that the enduring magnificence inspiration reportedly rotated between MAC and Bobbi Brown choices. Now, Swedish-based FACE Stockholm can verify precisely what nail-and-lip combo Bessette-Kennedy frequently purchased at its New York brick-and-mortar retailer.
“We were so honored and are still extremely proud to have had Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy as a frequent customer at our SoHo store in the ’90s,” the model solely instructed us. “Her favorites were Nail Polish #13, a sheer opal/iridescent shade, and of course, Cranberry Veil Lipstick.”
Whereas the mother-daughter model sadly now not carries nail polish, its Cranberry Veil remains to be its best-seller within the lipstick class, and infrequently primary throughout all classes. The sheer wash of buildable cream shade has been described as “universal” and like “cranberry sauce out of the can.”
“The color formula has remained unchanged since it launched in 1990,” FACE Stockholm shares. “It is still the same warm-berry shade that she wore so gracefully and made quite iconic. We still get many, many inquiries about Mrs. Kennedy and Cranberry Veil. It made such a strong impression on women—particularly here in New York. And, as time goes by the interest doesn’t waver. We are still greatly impacted by her small, seemingly simple choice of our lipstick shade. A butterfly flapping its wings indeed.”
