“When a little girl looks at lipstick, she’s fascinated with it,” Jaclyn Smith says.

 

She should know. The beauty icon has been enamored with it ever since the early 1950s when she first vividly remembers her mother’s go-to red-coral shade.

 

“She was truly a feminine woman. That was my role model,” the Charlie’s Angels actress recalls. 

 

Though Smith understood its allure early on, when she became a pre-teen who wore it to ballet recitals, she admits lipstick didn’t appeal all that much to her personally. “I was somewhat obsessed with dance and [my look] was very natural,” she says.

 

Seven decades later, it has become an integral part of Smith’s daily beauty routine. 

 

“Today, when I wake up, I want to put lipstick on. I love it, and I’m lost without it. It's amazing.”

 

It’s fitting then that the star, whose face has graced screens big and small (as well as countless posters over the years) has inspired a new Sisley Paris lipstick created by her longtime makeup artist and best friend Patrick Foley. 

It’s a full-circle moment for the renowned pro, who counts himself among those fans whose room was covered with images of Smith when he was a little kid long before a chance encounter with the actress while he was working at Chanel would lead to a lifelong friendship. And notably, it’s a special moment for Sisley Paris and Smith, as the brand launched the same year Charlie’s Angels debuted.

 

Phyto-Rouge Shine Sheer Bel Air is named after the neighborhood in which Smith resides. It’s where Foley drove samples of the mauve shade to her to test until he got the shade just right. Meanwhile, the shade number, 26, also pays homage to Smith, Foley explains. “That's the date of her birthday.”

 

The Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman exclusive retails for $67. A portion of February sales were donated to California Community Foundation - Wildfire Recovery Fund to support wildfire relief efforts.

 

With this creation (Foley’s second with Sisley) the resident makeup artist at Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills didn’t set out to create just any shade. He strove to craft the perfect mauve, a not so easy feat, he explains. 

 

“I have no interest in creating a lipstick that I have seen at other counters,” Foley states with confidence. After all, he’s seen nearly every lip launch for the past 25 years. When it comes to this new shade, he’s certain “no one really makes the color like this plum-y nude.”

For years, to achieve a look he was pleased with, previously Foley would cocktail a number of products. “I was taking a nude lip pencil from one brand to fill in the lip, mixing two lipsticks and then adding a gloss,” he says.

 

The process to create this new shade took “about 19 months” Foley shares. A long time, but not when you compare it to the first collab with the beauty brand for the creation of Phyto-Rouge Shine Sheer Beverly Hills (THE perfect beige lipstick), which took “over four and a half years,” he admits.

 

This second go-round was no less challenging, though. “I was getting really frustrated, and I was sort of like, ‘sometimes you just have to be good with being one and done’” he says referring to the previous shade. “I'm the one selling it, not just to actresses, but to nurses and school teachers. I have a wide range of clients that I've been helping for 30 years, and they're always like, ‘Why do I have to mix so much? That's not my life.’ And I thought, I'd rather not come out with it than have a second one I didn't love.”

 

For what it’s worth, Smith “loved” every iteration Foley drove to her home. “They were all so beautiful because of the color and the quality of the lipstick,” she says. 

The quality of Sisley’s formula has always impressed Foley, too. “No one else makes a formulation like this,” he says of Sisley Paris’ formula, which, according to a release, “is the perfect compromise between the satiny coverage of a classic lipstick and the sheerness of a gloss.” 

 

“This formulation's that rare thing where it has an incredible pigment payoff, but it's not too deep. It's almost like high-def," he exaplains.

 

As Foley would share samples, he’d also flex his pristine memory of her iconic show. “I have a better memory of Charlie's Angels than she does actually,” he laughs. Naturally, her makeup on it influenced this hue, "I’d say, ‘No, it should look like this on this episode,’ And she'd laugh.” 

 

But how would a semblance of a shade Smith wore decades ago be a go-to now? “Jaclyn’s beauty has remained. That’s the thing about real beauty,” Foley says, “It holds up.”

 

Smith explains, “With Charlie's Angels, there was no enhancement. So, I went along with a natural look. In fact, probably on screen what you saw most was a blush, but lips were always subdued but natural and there was no really lining of the lips. What you see is what you get.”

Foley remembers the moment he got the color right. “I remember running to her house. Jaclyn was the first person I showed and she loved it.”

 

“He was so excited,” Smith shares. “When I put it on, he photographed me and said, ‘You see how it shows up?’ And what I must say with Bel Air is you can tell it has depth of color and it also has a shine, which you don't get in all lipsticks. He really did it beautifully and to see his joy at what he thought was the completion was really a special moment for me.”

 

Foley is proud of the color, and its connection to his dear friend. “How often do you have an inspiration for something and then have the luxury of working with them? I always loved Jaclyn's opinion and her approach to beauty long before I knew her, so this was an honor.” 

 

Smith says the feeling is mutual. “I’m honored, but when he says he's inspired by me, no, he doesn't need inspiration. It's a natural talent he has to know how to mix colors and create dimension. He's a special person.”

 

But, throughout this experience there was another woman who often came to mind, he says. “I thought a lot about my mom, to be honest.”