Lacquered Lips Are Replacing Matte Lipsticks Across Luxury Beauty
By Runway Magazine Editorial Team | June 4, 2026
Matte lips had a long run. For the better part of a decade, the flat, sculpted pout dominated both the red carpet and the drugstore shelf. However, the tide has turned. Lacquered lips — high-shine, glossy, and deliberately luminous — are now outperforming matte formulas across luxury beauty. Runway beauty looks, celebrity red carpet moments, and social media’s appetite for visually striking content are all driving the shift. The lacquered lips beauty trends 2026 consensus is clear. The glossy lips trend is not a microtrend. It is a category realignment.
The evidence spans every segment of the market. At the 2026 Golden Globes, traditional red lipstick was notably scarce. Many celebrities chose transparent glosses — including Lisa and Ariana Grande — or opted for neutral, contoured lips with a glossy finish. Those who did wear color wore it in ways that prioritized luminosity over coverage. Sarah Snook’s warm barely-there red, created by makeup artist Mary Wiles, used a glossy finish to make the shade feel contemporary rather than archival. Traditional scarlet lips were replaced, in many cases, by textures that prioritize hydrated lips over pigment saturation.
The Texture Shift Beauty Editors Are Documenting
The most significant development in luxury makeup trend coverage for 2026 is not the return of shine per se. It is, rather, the emergence of a new texture category between traditional gloss and conventional lipstick. Beauty trend forecaster DeRoest, quoted by Who What Wear’s senior beauty editor Jamie Schneider, articulated this shift precisely. “In the past, trends tended to swing between extremes, either very matte and sculpted or ultra-glossy,” she said. “Now we’re seeing a middle ground where lips have dimension and shine but feel softer and more skin-like. It’s a more modern approach to lip color that focuses on comfort and wearability.”
That middle ground has produced the gloss balm hybrid category — products that combine the moisturizing properties of a traditional balm with the lacquer-like finish of a gloss. Alexandra McCormick at Hourglass Cosmetics confirms that high shine lip gloss formats are “all over TikTok” and driving demand for these hybrid formulas. “They have the moisturizing properties of a traditional balm with the lacquer-like finish of a gloss,” she confirms.
The Products Making It Happen
The Tatcha Reddo Melting Lip Balm became a focal product for this emerging texture category at the 2026 Oscars. It was worn at the Oscars after-party to achieve a glassy, ruby lip. Dewier than a satin finish yet not quite vinyl-like, the product reflects the move toward a healthy, “just right” dollop of shine. That “just right” framing is significant. It signals a shift away from both the clinical precision of matte and the maximalism of traditional gloss, toward something more organic and skin-compatible. As Who What Wear’s spring 2026 lip trends guide confirms, the gloss-balm hybrid represents “a more modern approach to lip color that focuses on comfort and wearability.” For more on the beauty products and formulas defining 2026, explore Runway’s viral TikTok mascaras and beauty analysis.
The Key Products and Formulas
Gloss-Balm Hybrids
The Hourglass Phantom Volumizing Glossy Balm is one of the most consistent editorial beauty looks references in the 2026 lacquered lip conversation. Its construction delivers volumizing effects and a high-shine finish. It avoids the sticky texture that kept many consumers from committing to traditional gloss. The format — balm texture, gloss result — is precisely what the current market demands.
VIOLETTE_FR’s Lip Nectar Hydrating Lip Stain has similarly attracted attention from makeup artists and beauty editors across 2026. It occupies the meeting point between lip stain trend and gloss. Color builds with each application while maintaining a hydrated, luminous surface. Fenty Beauty’s Gloss Bomb Stix provides a more accessible entry point into the category. LYS Beauty’s Speak Love Lip Plumping Glossy Lip Balm, meanwhile, addresses the consumer desire for plumping alongside shine.
The Color Story
The berry lip color dimension of the lacquered lip trend is, notably, one of its most distinctive features. Celebrity makeup artist Christian Briceno predicts that berry hues will lead the blurred lip look that sits adjacent to the full gloss. “The edge is diffused, the finish sits in a satin-matte zone, and the shade lives between raspberry, mulberry, and wine,” he explains. That description — raspberry, mulberry, wine — maps precisely to the color story dominating editorial coverage throughout 2026.
At the same time, the transparent and near-nude glossy lip remains one of the dominant formats for red carpet beauty. The Golden Globes pattern — transparent gloss over natural lip — represents the lower-saturation end of the high-shine vocabulary. Both versions share a commitment to luminosity over coverage. That shared commitment distinguishes this moment from traditional gloss revivals. That shared commitment is what distinguishes this moment from traditional gloss revivals. For more on the beauty and fashion trends defining the season, explore Runway’s glass skin K-beauty 2026 routine guide.
Makeup Artists on Why Lacquered Finishes Work
The makeup artist favorites driving the lacquered lip conversation consistently emphasize two practical advantages. First, editorial impact. A lacquered, high-shine lip photographs with a dimensionality and luminosity that flat matte finishes cannot replicate. Beauty editorial shoots that require a lip look to carry visual weight in a photograph now consistently favor high-shine formulas for this reason. Second, wearability. The summer lip trends case for high-shine lips is one of practicality as well as aesthetics.
Dior Beauty backstage makeup artist Jamie Coombes, NARS senior artist Jen Lyons, and Sculpted By Aimee founder Aimee Connolly collectively identified “shellac-looking lips” as a top summer 2026 trend. They shared this in their expert consultation with Who What Wear. The specific phrase — shellac-looking — captures the lacquered aesthetic precisely. It is a finish that reads as intentional, polished, and contemporary in ways that even the most precisely applied matte cannot replicate.
“For spring/summer 2026, it’s all about the lip,” confirmed high fashion beauty makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, who created beauty looks for the Off-White show. “Dark browns, deep pinks, and true reds will reign supreme.” Those shade references align with the broader move toward high-pigment, high-shine formulas. The modern lip makeup moment of 2026 is therefore a story about both finish and color simultaneously. Viral beauty products in the lip category are not simply glossy. They are glossy in specific shades — berry, burgundy, red, translucent — that photograph with maximum visual impact. Moreover, the best of them condition the lips rather than simply coating them.
The MERIT Counter-Argument and What It Tells Us
The matte lip has not disappeared entirely — but the lip gloss comeback has made it the minority position. MERIT’s recent lipstick launch — a soft matte formula with a lightweight construction — made an explicit case for the enduring appeal of the format. “Glossy lips have been trending for the last few years, but a soft matte lip is a generational classic,” said Alia Morin, MERIT’s chief marketing officer. That framing — matte as a generational classic — reveals something important about the current moment. Matte has shifted from dominant trend to deliberate alternative. It is now chosen rather than defaulted to.
That shift has commercial consequences for the luxury beauty products market. When matte was dominant, gloss was the disruptive choice. The dynamic has simply reversed. Now that shine is dominant, a precisely applied soft matte becomes the disruptive choice. Both carry fashion credibility. The difference is that the lacquered lip is currently the default, while matte is the considered departure. Celebrity makeup trends in 2026 consistently reflect this hierarchy and provide the makeup inspiration that drives commercial demand. Glowing makeup trend content featuring high-shine lips generates significantly more engagement than matte lip content across every major social platform. As Harper’s Bazaar’s 2026 Golden Globes lip trend analysis confirms, the shift toward transparent glosses and glossy finishes over traditional matte at major awards events represents a genuine market realignment. For all the beauty, luxury, and trend coverage that matters in 2026, trust Runway Magazine.
