Beauty Rare Beauty Encourage Guide: The Shade Everyone Loves Now
An educational guide from the Beauty AMZ research team. No hard sell, just what you need to know.
How Selena Gomez built a beauty phenomenon
Rare Beauty launched in 2020 into the most crowded celebrity beauty market in history, and stood out by leading with mission over ego. Gomez centered mental health and self acceptance, built the Rare Impact Fund into the business model, and formulated products that felt genuinely considered. The Soft Pinch blush became the breakout because it was objectively excellent, not just famous. The brand's success rewrote the celebrity beauty playbook: authenticity plus performance wins.
The psychology of the perfect neutral pink
Neutral pinks flatter broadly because they echo the color of healthy, oxygenated skin across undertones. Warm pinks can clash with cool skin and vice versa, but a balanced neutral sits comfortably everywhere. Encourage's specific depth, soft but visible, hits the sweet spot where the color reads as a flush rather than makeup. Color psychologists note that pink signals approachability and warmth, which may explain the shade's emotional resonance beyond its technical merits.
Inside the Soft Pinch formula
The Soft Pinch liquid blush achieves its famous pigmentation through high pigment loading in a volatile light base that evaporates on application, leaving pure color with minimal weight. Film formers keep the pigment in place for all day wear without heavy waxes. The dewy finish comes from light reflecting particles fine enough to glow rather than glitter. It is a masterclass in doing more with less: maximum color, minimum feel.
The Rare Impact Fund difference
Rare Beauty pledges one percent of annual sales to the Rare Impact Fund, which supports mental health initiatives worldwide, with a goal of raising 100 million dollars. This is not a limited campaign but a permanent business commitment. For shoppers, it means the purchase carries meaning beyond the product. The fund's existence also keeps the brand accountable to its message in a way few beauty companies attempt.
Recommended Products
These are the products our research team rates highest in this category.
Best for: Soft neutral pink lip color with lasting comfort
Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Tinted Lip Oil in Honesty
- Gel to oil formula starts glossy, sets to tint
- Honesty is a soft rose brown neutral
- Never sticky, comfortable all day wear
- Jojoba and sunflower oils nourish lips
Pros
- Beautiful long wearing tint
- Comfortable non drying formula
- Shade flatters across skin tones
Cons
- Gloss phase fades to tint
- Doe foot needs a steady hand
- Premium price per ounce
Best for: Buildable glossy lip tint in signature shades
Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Tinted Lip Oil
- Innovative lip jelly to lightweight oil texture
- Buildable color from sheer to saturated
- Stays comfortable without stickiness
- Signature Soft Pinch shade family
Pros
- Fun transformative texture
- Great everyday lip color
- Nourishing oil base
Cons
- Shade varies from listing photos
- Needs reapplying after meals
- Small tube for the price
Best for: Lit from within glow on cheeks and high points
Rare Beauty Positive Light Liquid Luminizer in Enlighten
- Enlighten is a soft champagne glow
- Microfine pearls give luminosity, not glitter
- Liquid formula blends seamlessly
- Layerable from subtle to striking
Pros
- Gorgeous natural looking radiance
- Blends like a dream
- A little goes a very long way
Cons
- Too much looks shiny in photos
- Premium pricing
- Champagne tone suits light to medium best
Tinted Lip Oil vs True Liquid Matte: The Fade Pattern
Tinted lip oils like the Rare Beauty Soft Pinch oils and true liquid mattes fail in opposite ways, and the fade pattern determines which suits your day. Lip oils fade evenly from the moment of application, gradually sheer out over two to three hours, and never patch, the color simply gets quieter. True liquid mattes hold full intensity for hours then fail at the center, leaving the ring that needs active repair.
Comfort diverges just as sharply. Lip oils condition while they wear, making them the choice for dry lips and long days, while liquid mattes demand prep and tolerate no lip texture. Reapplication favors oils too, a fresh swipe blends seamlessly, while matte reapplication needs a clean base. The trade-off is intensity and longevity, mattes win both, oils win everything else. For drugstore stain hybrids that split the difference, our CoverGirl lip stain guide covers the middle format.
Winter Wear: Lip Oils in Dry Indoor Heating
Winter is lip oil season, and the reason is environmental. Indoor heating drops humidity drastically, which punishes liquid mattes, they crack, flake, and emphasize every dry patch, while lip oils thrive, their emollient base doubles as the barrier dry air demands. The seasonal swap that works is mattes for humid months, oils for heated months, rather than forcing one format year-round.
The winter lip-barrier routine around oils is simple, gentle exfoliation twice weekly to prevent flake buildup under the oil, and a richer overnight lip mask since daytime oils alone cannot repair. Skip the matte-to-oil layering trend in deep winter, the combination pills as the formulas fight. For building a complete lip kit that rotates with the seasons, our lip makeup guide covers the full kit logic.
Two-Step Glossy Systems vs Matte-Only: Who Wins
Two-step systems, color plus gloss topcoat in the Chanel Le Rouge Duo style, promise shine with staying power, and the comparison against matte-only wearers comes down to priorities. The two-step wins on comfort and visual richness, the gloss layer keeps lips supple for hours and adds dimension no flat matte matches. Matte-only wins on longevity and low maintenance, one application outlasts the two-step's color coat, and there is no second tube to carry.
The failure modes differ instructively. Two-step systems fail when the gloss wears off unevenly, leaving patchy color that needs both steps to repair. Mattes fail at the center ring. For wearers who want shine without the two-tube commitment, modern stain-gloss hybrids approximate the effect in one step. For lacquer-format showdowns in the glossy category, our lip lacquer comparison pits the brands against each other.
Ready to Choose?
See our top product picks for encourage rare beauty, or jump straight to the head-to-head comparison of the two most popular options.