By Dom Galeon
Not everyone knew it, but last July 29 the world celebrated the International Lipstick Day. Yes, there is such a thing, which isn’t really hard to believe if you consider how many kinds of “days” we celebrate. In keeping with this one-of-a-kind celebration, a time for people to cash in on deals and to revamp their makeup stash, Happy Skin Cosmetics decided to bring back a favorite product line.
What started as a partnership with Love Marie Escudero, or Heart Evangelista as she’s more popularly known, back in 2016 has now gone full circle, so to speak, from two limited edition lip liners into two matte lipsticks. “We were so happy when Heart mentioned us in a magazine story as one of her favorite cosmetic brands,” Happy Skin co-founder and chief brand officer Rissa Mananquil-Trillo tells me at the launch of the revamped Happy Skin x Love Marie Shut Up & Kiss Me product line. Happy Skin became even happier when Heart herself approached them for a collaboration—and the two lip liners they came up with, which Heart designed and named as Skinny Dipping for the nude color and Heartthrob for the red, became almost instant bestsellers.
When you’re happy and you put that red lipstick on, it’s a totally different story.Rissa says that it was only apt that they re-launched their Love Marie line, this time as two lipsticks of the same names and colors as the original lip liners, something that they don’t really do with their other product partnerships.
Heart Evangelista poses with her two matte lipstick products
“I’m very flattered that people like what I share,” Heart tells me, while we were chatting inside the Happy Skin store at the second level of the SM Aura Premier. “Everything that I share with my fans, or to those people ho are curious, are things I’ve learned for like a long time—what’s the best lipstick shade, what works for me, what works for any skin type, whether I’m tan or all that. It’s nice that you can share it and people can relate to it, even if they’re not your fans. And with Happy Skin, that’s exactly what happened. They liked the lip liners, and so Rissa came up with the idea that it was time to make it into a full lippie. And it’s nice, it’s really nice. They followed up, I didn’t have to call,” she adds laughing. Heart likes to be involved with the creative decisions in every business endeavor she’s in and her experience in using various cosmetic products helps in coming up with ideas.
“Experience, traveling, being exposed to different things, you kind of more or less know what would work for you,” explains Heart. “Like in my case, the nude and the red really work because for somebody who’s busy and needs to do a quick change, they can look better instantly and even totally change the whole look, like from afternoon to evening.”
Heart with Happy Skin founders Jacqe Yuengtian-Gutierrez and Rissa Mananquil-Trillo
Since we were already talking about beauty, I took the opportunity to ask Heart to share what her ultimate secret was.
“Always be happy,” she says simply. “What’s really important is to be happy. No matter what you put on your face, no matter how nice your dress is, but when you’re really in a bad place, you’ll just have this shadow covering you. When you’re happy and you put that red lipstick on, it’s a totally different story. Live life to the fullest and the rest will follow. You don’t have to be a supermodel to look beautiful. You just have to have confidence, the confidence to be happy.”
Happy Skin’s two new Love Marie Shut Up & Kiss Me moisturizing matte lipsticks come in nude and red, both sold at R649 each. happyskincosmetics.com