Lipstick can do so much to a woman’s confidence, spirit and drive. Whether it’s a light natural lip-gloss to add instant polish or a ritualistic application of dramatic blackberry red – lip makeup today promises more than just colour. With the continuing outrageous onslaught of “lip enhancing products” we return to “the basics” of making the best of your lips without the irritation and side effects. All you need is some skin tone concealer, a good neutral toned lip liner pencil, some lipstick or gloss and a lip brush.
So get out your compacts girls. Remove any lip make-up and apply a light application of lip balm (Carmex) to smooth and moisturize your lips. Look into your mirror and take note of your mouth shape. Study the different lip shapes below and identify your lip concerns. You may have a combination of more than one shape. Apply skin tone concealer/foundation to parts of the mouth that you want to disguise. Use a freshly sharpened, neutral toned lip liner to place dots as shown in the Lip Graph illustrations. Don’t over do it and end up looking like Lucille Ball! Experimentation and practice will refine this new skill. Make sure your hand is steady as you draw direct lines, without lifting the pencil, from the natural outer corners of your mouth inwards towards the top peaks. Working this way gives a more controlled application because you are working against the muscles of the mouth. Shade the outer border of the lips to bridge the new lip line with your natural one. Apply lipstick or gloss to the centre of the mouth and blend to meet the lip line with a brush or wand.
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Lip Graphs
- Balanced Lips: the top lip is a cupids bow shape; bottom and top lips are equal in proportion and fullness, defined vermillion. Balanced lips can be softly accented or boldly dramatized.
- Undefined Lips: the lip shape is not visible, pale in colour. Use a lip pencil to design and shape the lip. Fill in with a soft to bright colour. Stay away from dark colours.
- Thin Lips: especially when smiling. Overdraw the lips using the Lip Graph for direction. Apply natural to medium shades, brights, and metallics with shimmer and shiny finishes. The worst colours are anything dark and matte. These colours will make you look like Cruella de Ville.
- Full Lips: to make full lips look less full use neutral to dark tones and stains with a matte finish. Begin colour application in centre of your mouth and fade the colour to the outer edge of mouth to “sink” the mouth.
- Top Heavy/Bottom Heavy Lips: match the weaker lip to the stronger one. For example, overdraw a slim top lip to match and balance the stronger bottom lip. The reverse works for the opposite.
- Down turned Lips: a great way to “lift” the outer corners of the mouth is to place foundation/concealer right at the very outside corner of the mouth on a 45 degree angle upwards and over the “droopy” top corners. Blend well into place. Start the lip liner further into the mouth, away from the “old-droopy” corner to redirect the angle into a happier one.
- Uneven Lips: irregular, lopsided and unbalanced lips take great dexterity to remedy. Use concealer/foundation to eliminate the areas you want to disguise. The Lip Graph comes in great use here. Place dots and connect for a preliminary design. Refine shape and fill in with colour.
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