Orange aid

M.A.C Neon Orange lipstick. Photo / Babiche Martens.

Orange is undoubtedly the freshest colour of the season. Viva's fashion pages have been signalling the trend for some time and now it's showing up in spring makeup selections.

As any pop psychologist or paint shop will tell you, orange is a confident and bold choice, but it does have a spiritual dimension. My personal experience of this came while sauntering in the shadow of Christchurch Cathedral many years back, wearing orange Zambesi from head-to-toe. Fresh from a shopping trip to the label's early base in Lorne St, Auckland, I thought my baggy cotton T-shirt and pants had a touch of the then-fashionable Japanese-influence about them. But with my hairdresser's version of a No. 3 buzzcut and bedecked in jet beads, a couple of locals saw otherwise, interrupting my reverie with chants of "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama."

Since then I haven't worn a lot of orange, but I now have an 8-year-old who wants to paint her room that colour and I'm rather wishing I'd held onto the Zambesi outfit, what with the price of vintage, and drop-crotch pants having another moment. Guess I'll console myself with a touch of orange lippy instead. (I don't remember the miserable-looking Hare Krishna women who lived up the road from me and trailed into town behind their chanting, bell-clanging men, wearing a lot of that).

If you fancy trying orange, my advice is redefine your idea of an orange palette to take in softer peachy and coral tones. They're very flattering. Burnished copper, ginger and gold are other related shades, and gold, especially, carries through for high-summer glamour and beyond.

If you do go ultra-bright on the lips, pare back the rest of your makeup, so you don't look like a fluorescent fright.