Strong lipstick game is guaranteed to make you more confident, and have you feeling like an A star diva with a few colour swipes. That’s why taking care of your lips and learning how to apply lipstick is a game-changer.
Step 1: Prepping Your Lips
Two words: exfoliate and moisturize. You can DIY a homemade lip scrub with brown sugar, honey and some olive oil or buy ready made scrubs. You can use any moisturizer, even Vaseline, before you go to bed and right before you start your makeup routine to give you lips the moisture they need. This is especially important in the Winter or when you’re planning on wearing your lips dark or matte (or both).
Step 2: Set Them Up For Success
If you want your lipstick colour to pop, use a big powder brush and tap some setting powder on your lips to neutralise the natural pigmentation of your lips. That way, your lips essentially become a blank canvas ready for a serious pop of colour.
Step 3: Pick A Shade
People will forever tell you to wear this shade to match your skin tone, and to avoid that because of your skin tone. Even makeup artists give general guides, such as that the most flattering shade for everyone is a colour two shades darker than the colour of their natural lips. But the reality is, you can make almost every shade work. Pick a shade based on the season, day/night time and the occasion, rather than your skin tone.
Step 4: Line ‘Em
Lip liners are life! Trust me on this one. Depending on what look you’re looking for, you’ll pick a lip liner that’s the same colour as your lipstick choice, a shade or two darker, or use only a lip liner all around.
To avoid bleeding
If you picked a dark shade, lining your lips and even filling them with the lip liner helps you avoid colour bleeding when applying the lipstick itself.
Nudes
Nude lipstick isn’t one shade! Each person has a different shade of nude that works best for them. Some nudes have pink undertones and some have brown undertones, which again work best depending on your own skin complexion and undertone. The trick is to use a lip liner darker than the nude to “contour” your lips and make it blend seamlessly without looking like you packed chalk on your lips.
Ombre
The newest lip trend is to create an ombre effect. Here, you’ll use a lip liner much darker than the lipstick, and maybe even use two lipsticks of gradient shades.
Step 5: Lipstick
Application differs from cream lipsticks, to tube lipsticks, to liquid lipsticks. You might even choose to just wear a lip liner all over. But if you choose to wear a lipstick, you can apply it using a lip brush, through the liquid lipstick brush or straight out of the tube. There’s no right or wrong method here, as long as you don’t over-apply and create creasing. If you’re using a liquid lipstick, apply and let it dry without smacking your lips together.
Step 6: Clean It Up
It’s okay if you make a few screw ups along the way. You can use a concealer or a little bit of your foundation on an angled brush to clean any excess lipstick around your edges to create a crisp perfect look.
Now that you have every necessary tool in your toolkit, you can experiment, mix lipsticks, play with colours and have fun with it. Perfect lipstick, here we come!