Kiss of death: Black lipstick but not everyone is a fan

Wearing black lipstick is a statement in extremity. Like Pasolini's films or death metal tracks it is a hard, unremitting and shocking aesthetic. Black lipstick is a make-up absolute – and this season it's everywhere. A total of three catwalk shows for Autumn Winter 08 featured black lips: YSL, Tao and Giles where the make-up artist Miranda Joyce painted lips a radical and intransigent ebony. And Lancome's new artistic director Aaron De Mey, has created an onyx-hued lipgloss, Piha Black Colour Fever Gloss, inspired by volcanic beaches in his native New Zealand.

I feel somewhat vindicated. I've been wearing thick charcoal lipstick for two years now. Finally, my predilection for the darkside has reached critical mass. It all began several years ago. I developed a penchant for a Mac lip colour called Media. It was a poisonous and vitreolic purple, edging very closely to black. It signalled to loads of things I was interested in: actresses in old black and white films, Garbo and Theda Bara, early Seventies, Galliano shows from the late 80s that were full of Thirties retro and Alison Goldfrapp's art deco via Seventies' glam rock stylings. Then in late 2006, the PR girl for Japanese beauty brand Shu Uemura showed me their new Rouge Unlimited range. There were all sorts of fabulous colours: atomic blue and bright pea green and... black.

I seized upon the black and decided to wear it to a work Christmas party. I teamed it with an emerald satin Diane Von Furstenberg dress to create an interesting cross-current of influences. The dress was old-school Hollywood, the lipstick new school gothic. I couldn't find a black lipliner so I just stroked a couple of thick layers on. My colleagues looked bemused. After all, we all worked in the fashion industry.

Some months later, I was asked to appear on the GMTV show LK Today, espousing my favourite beauty products. I wore a Sonia Delaunay-esque print blue and green Margaret Howell two-piece and topped it off with black lipstick. As we were filming the cameraman politely asked me if my lipstick was green. Nothing else was said about it and I forgot I had it on.

A few weeks later my slot on LKToday was aired. "Look at her black lipstick," screeched Lorraine in horror after my segment was shown. "Scary" and "horrible" she deemed as a still of me flashed up. She then sniggered in mockery before introducing the next guest.

Worse was to come. Days later, free rag London Lite got wind of it and ran a story on me en headed: "And you say you're a beauty expert..." accompanied by an unflattering still of me from the show. Essentially, they were accusing me of being the equivalent of a dentist with rotten teeth – a traitor to my profession, due to my eccentric taste in make-up. Ultimately, I found it all rather funny. Who'd have thought something as incremental as lipstick colour could cause such a furore? True, my avant-garde lipstick statement did jar with the bland beige sofaworld of LK Today. Well good. All too often beauty editors have the anodyne polished blonde and tanned look of uptown Manhattan ladies who lunch. Why shouldn't there be one or two eccentric ones prone to wearing interesting and creative make-up?

Besides, around that time, early 2007, black lipstick had started appearing on the catwalks at Junya Watanabe and Imitation of Christ. The world's top make-up artist Pat McGrath had used it in a Steven Meisel shoot entitled Memphis (inspired by the furniture of the same name) in an issue of Italian Vogue. Black lipstick was in the ether and was building towards the make-up zeitgeist. It was channelling gothic and the nihilism of punk. But it was daring and modern and innovative. I wear it with a whole jumble of labels like Marni or Erdem so the look is not solely goth. Black lips lend edge to an outfit, whatever its hue.

I subsequently road-tested blue lipstick, yellow lipstick and green lipstick with equally varied results. At Glastonbury in 2007, a man came up to me and asked me if I was dead, due to the nuclear blue on my lips. Then another guy approached me and asked me if I was in a rock band. One man ran up to me and gave me a full-on kiss, declaring "I love blue lips".

And indeed an extreme black lipstick statement will lead you into adventures and elicit strange and varied reactions, even in this supposedly post-modern world where everything has been seen and done. I still paint it on thick when I'm feeling bold, or for special occasions. Black lipstick is certainly a courageous move, but it will take you to interesting places.