The perfect red lip

My latest task, i.e. obsession is to find the perfect red lipstick. It's a trend this season that keeps coming back and it can be such a classic look. I loved it at the Spring shows like at Louis Vuitton and Lanvin where the eye is done very minimally and the lip just pops in bold red. There are a ridiculous number of shades of red and it's been difficult to find the right one against my skin tone. I've been finding them to have too much pink base or too orange base or just too dark. Where is the basic blood red lipstick? I went to Nordstroms' Mac counter and purchased a color called Diva. But now that I look at it on me, it looks too orangy and not deep red enough; back to the drawing board. Weeks later after my lack of complete satisfaction for the Diva color, I took a trip to Sephora who has tons and tons of different brands to choose from and test out. This trip turned into a vacation after the amount of time I spent in there. I ended up buying a color named Dakota Red by Vincent Longo, which wasn't cheap by the way. I wore it, but when I looked at myself in normal lighting (because lets face it the lighting at the make-up department is skewed) I was not impressed. So back to the search. Now I'm thinking something a little less extravagant. Maybe I'm giving all of the high priced designer choices too much credit. I'm now making a trip to WalGreen's drugstore to check out the selection by the commercial masses. Wish me luck.