15 Tips for Lips

By far, the best advice I can give is to “touch up” throughout the day. NO lippy – no matter how perfectly applied or how it’s marketed – will last all day and look fabulous unless it’s re-applied! And often!

Here are some of my tried and true tips for prettier than pretty lips!

1. Don’t play up the eyes and the mouth:    If you wear heavy  eye  makeup  and dark lipstick you risk looking like a clown. If  you want  to wear  red lipstick, keep the rest of your makeup light. If you’re playing up the eyes, keep your mouth light with a gloss or nude colour.
2. To give the illusion of “plump” lips dab gloss in the middle of your bottom lip.
3. How should you apply lipstick?  No rules apply! Some women prefer a lipstick brush. Others hate them. Some use their middle finger. Most apply straight from the tube. Choose what’s right for you. As long as the colour goes on your lips and not your chin, you’re doing just fine!
4. Use liner as a base. Lipstick will last longer if you fill in your lips with the liner first. If you’re using light lipstick, use a nude liner. Lip gloss always tends to wear off fast, but if you fill in lips first with liner, the gloss has something to stick to. 
My favourite is to use a lip concealer to cancel out the natural colour of the lip and get a truer match to the colour in the tube.
5.  You can line before or after you apply lipstick or gloss. Some women prefer to apply liner first, arguing that you won’t be able to see the natural line if you apply lipstick first. But I find lips look more natural when I line lips after I apply lipstick.
6. Never EVER use a dark liner with light lipstick. Defined lips are great, but make sure the liner matches the lipstick or gloss. Dark liner and light lips is tacky ++
7. Don’t throw out a bad colour lipstick. Instead, create a great lip colour by blending lipsticks you don’t like. You can also colour in lips with a darker colour before applying a lipstick that’s too bright or light.
8. Keep lipstick off glass. Discreetly lick your lips before taking a sip from a glass. It really works!
9. Keep lipstick off your teeth with this trick. After applying lipstick, take your index finger and pop it in your mouth, then pull it out. The excess lipstick will come off on your finger and not your teeth.
10. Lipstick can act as a blush but it is rare that you’d find a blush you can also use as lipstick.
11. The older you are, the “creamier” your lips should look. If your lips are thinned out and wrinkled, avoid matte. Stick with a creamy lipstick. A little gloss is good, but not too much.
12. Not all lipstick shades look good on everyone.  You may like a lipstick on your friend, but it may not look good on you. We’re often told that orange or brown shades, including corals, only look good on very few people as these shades tend to make teeth appear yellow. HOWEVER, it all depends on the base colour of your lips to begin with. I usually turn most lipsticks blue if they don’t start with a hint of coral. This makes me look like I was just rescued from the freezer! Know your tones & try on lots! Adapt a too-coral lippy with a hint of blue-based gloss. Customise! It’s not what you wear, it’s how you wear it!
13. Camouflage yellowed teeth. To downplay a yellow tinge on teeth, try lipsticks with a bluish undertone. Shades that work include plums, pinks, wines and violets – but as mentioned in the point above,  know whether too blue a shade will make you look a little on the “deceased” side too!
14. Fix – don’t throw out – a broken lipstick. If your lipstick breaks off, simply take off the broken portion with a tissue, then slowly wave a lit match under the broken piece of lipstick. When it’s melted a bit, put it back on the base, swivel it down and put it in the fridge – uncovered – for 30 minutes. Voila!
15. Lipstick All Gone?  – You might notice there’s still a bit of lipstick down in the tube. Scrape out the last bits with a cotton bud  and mix it with Vaseline or lip-gloss in a lipstick palette. Use a lip brush to apply.

And finally, one last tip for the lips! Scoop out the lipstick remnants from the bottom of the tubes and put them in a pill case (you know…the ones with the days of the week individually capped?). Put it in the microwave until the lipstick melts. Use a lip brush and enjoy seven new lipsticks – one for every day of the week or seven different outfits!