Choosing cosmetics used to mean pretty straightforward color selections: pink, red, maybe purple. No longer.

There's a new world of choices: Will you choose Temptress? Vixen? Teasing Flirt? Or perhaps a bit of Tie Me to the Bedpost blush to go with your Pop My Bubble lip gloss?

"Makeup is hope in a jar... You can try on a different identity." -- Jean Godfrey-June, Lucky magazine beauty director

Makeup has always been about sex -- usually implicitly. Now things are becoming more explicit.

Sexy names are overrunning cosmetics counters, making a simple task such as buying blush seem like a trip to the curtained-off section of your local movie rental place.

Customers relish the thrill inherent in racy monikers -- and beauty companies welcome the chance to call red something other than red.

''Makeup is hope in a jar. ... if you go into any cosmetics emporium, department store or Bath & Body Works, you can find every possible hope,'' says Jean Godfrey-June, beauty director at Lucky magazine. ''You can try on a different identity.''

Hot-and-heavy trend

Even a mild name can inspire. One of Godfrey-June's favorites, MAC Juicy Pink lip gloss, looks shockingly pink in the tube. In reality, it only adds a bit of shimmer to her lips.

"No one knows you're wearing it. But you do," she says. "Sexy makeup is for even more modest women than closet sexy-lingerie wearers."

About 20 percent of new color cosmetics shades fell into this hot-and-heavy trend during the first half of the year, says Karen Grant, senior beauty analyst at market research firm NPD.

"This year is when we really saw the push toward really sexy names. It was really across categories -- nails to lipsticks," Grant says. "The shade name that's most likely to make you blush: Pussy Galore from James Bond. I'm amazed that it could be used then, let alone now."

'A red is a red is a red'

It's not just edgy companies like NARS (Orgasm blush), MAC (Velvet Teddy lipstick) or Benefit (Dr. Feelgood face balm). Traditional mainstream brands are in the game, too, including Lancome (Exotic Kiss lip gloss), Clinique (Nudey nail polish) and Chanel (Boudoir rouge).

"There are only so many colors for makeup, only so many reds and pinks -- a red is a red is a red -- but some of the names make them stand out," says Nina Sisselman, vice president of creative development for High Maintenance, the company with the beauty license for Playboy.

"If you're in Sephora, with hundreds of choices in front of you, the name, the package and the color makes a difference."

Victoria's Secret recently launched a collection called Very Sexy Makeup, with some compacts carrying the words Very Sexy inside.

"Every woman has many sides of sexy," says Christine Beauchamp, CEO of Victoria's Secret Beauty. Beauchamp wears Passion lip gloss, a mosaic blush called Wild Child and Sultry eye shadow.

"We all love telling each other what shades we're wearing," she says. "Saying the names out loud makes you giggle, and I see customers really enjoying the shade names when they're at the makeup bar in the stores."

But as cosmetic manufacturers keep pushing for new ways to stand out, will names become too hot to handle?

Grant predicts that if companies go too far, shoppers' intrigue will turn to repulsion. Indeed, Pout's Carpet Burn lipstick, a dark black-currant color, actually made the NPD staff gasp. (A Pout spokeswoman says the color was discontinued in the United States, not because of the name but because of a regular turnover of colors. The color is, however, still available on Pout's British Web site.)

Striptease, described as a soft nude pink lipstick, is one of Pout's top sellers. The best-selling lip gloss? Pop My Bubble.

Sexy, but not X-rated

At Victoria's Secret, a team develops an entire personality for a line, complete with a script and voice, much like the early stages of scripting a movie.

Once team members have a list of shade names, they "cast" them using what they think are the most appropriate colors. A deep red became Slow Burn, a nude color Wet, and gold was christened G -- "G for gold, G for G-string or G for whatever else you're thinking," Beauchamp says.

The names match the brand image, she adds: sexy but not X-rated.

The Playboy brand has a different connotation. Tie Me to the Bedpost blush and Mile High mascara fit right in the overall picture for Playboy, which also named all of its eyeliners for bar-worthy pickup lines, including Are Those Real?

As Sisselman says, "If anyone can push the bubble, Playboy can push it. We're not for Sally Homemaker next door."