Lip Service

Dior has just released two new lipsticks - Double Rouge and Rouge Dior Liquid - that deliver multiple shades in trailblazing textures. Here, Peter Philips exclusively talks about how his latest creations came about.

- Sophia Serin

We are always on the hunt for a lipstick, gloss or liner that doesn’t bleed or move off our mouth and thanks to Dior, the search is officially over. Dior has just released two new game changing lip products: Rouge Dior Liquid which is the first multi-effect, ultra-comfortable liquid stain, and Double Rouge which has a one-of-a-kind double effect finish. Emirates Woman exclusively caught up with Peter Philips, the Creative and Image Director of Dior Makeup, to find out what it takes to reinvent a classic and formulate a new one.

Tell us about how you came up with the new Double Rouge concept?

In my research I found images in the [Dior] archive of 1990s advertisements and found one called Rogue Cache. I thought it was interesting because it’s old school technology, for me it's not new. Then I saw the reaction of our young interns. They went crazy when they saw the mood board. I was like ‘look at them!’ What was vintage technology for me, was new for them. So I thought about how to play with it and reinvent the technology that we already had. I challenged the labs: instead of trying to mix lip care and skincare and make it into one stick, let's try to do extreme formulas in cosmetics, like a matte with a metallic all in one stick, and see what it gives. So we started playing and ended up with 20 lipstick shades in total: 20 lipsticks means 40 shades to develop, because each lipstick has two shades in it.

How much of the old technology did you use?

We used it just to do the two-in-one with the wall of the lipstick in matte and the heart, fluorescent. That was the idea. Pigment on the inside and balm on the other. We also did a few more tone on tone because there you get contrasts. For example, two reds: rouge matte and metallic red, which are less extreme in contrast but you still see a playfulness of textures.