The final touch to any makeover is the lips. Here are six steps to help you achieve gorgeous lip perfection.
Prep:
Even the most gorgeous lip makeup can't hide dry, chapped lips. So, make sure you start with healthy, moisturized lips prior to any lip makeup application.
Just like your skin, your lips need exfoliation. Lip Glosses help moisturize, but they don't exfoliate. Sugar crystals are a great natural exfoliant - just rub the sugar over your slightly moistened lips to help get rid of dry skin. For a more luxurious effect, try Alexis Vogel Lip Exfoliant with crushed apricot seeds and essential moisturizing oils. It's absolutely divine!
Apply your lip gloss and let it set while you are doing the rest of your makeup to help moisturize your lips, then blot it gently to remove any excess when you're ready to apply lip color.
Base:
Lightly cover your lips with your foundation - then apply your powder. Be sure to blot the powder with a puff or tissue. This helps even out any discoloration in your lips and acts as a "base" to help lock in your lip color for long wear.
Line:
A Lip Liner adds definition, helps sculpt the shape of your lips - and prevents your lipstick from bleeding. You can even make your lips look smaller, larger or more balanced just with a Lip Liner, so it's an important and vital tool.
There are two main methods to line your lips - connect the dots or feather/sketch with short strokes.
Connecting the dot method is the easiest, especially if you don't have a steady hand. Just draw dots on each point of the cupids bow on your upper lip and then two more dots directly below them on your bottom lip. Then, just connect the dots with light strokes of your lipliner. Remember to use a light touch.
To feather, use short, delicate strokes - starting from the outside and blending your lipliner strokes inward - remember, use a very light touch. The key here is not having it look like a solid lip line, but more like a natural contour. Be sure to keep your lipliner pencil sharpened to achieve the lightest feathery strokes possible for a natural look. A great pencil to try is Alexis Vogel Lip Liner.
To Make Your Lips Look Fuller:
Line just above or outside your natural lip line to create fuller looking lips. Try to avoid darker colors, which tend to make your lips look smaller.
To Make Your Lips look Smaller:
Line just slightly below or inside your natural lip line to make your lips appear smaller. Try to avoid light, bright or shiny colors which tend to make lips look fuller and draw more attention.
Color:
Now you are ready for your color - a lip brush provides the perfect vehicle to insure precise application of your lip color every time. Start with your upper lip, blending from the center out towards the corners. Next, apply color to your lower lip in the same manner.
There are a hundreds of Lip Colors and Formulas available to suit your needs. Have fun and experiment with them to find your favorites. Moisturizing lipsticks are creamy and shiny, but don't wear as long as Lip Stains or Long Wearing Lip Sticks. A great all-purpose long wearing Lip Stick to try is Alexis Vogel Lip Stick.
Don't worry about matching your lip color to your wardrobe or eye color. They should however, all complement each other for a pleasing palette that will make you look fabulous.
By Gerti Soderquist - For more great articles, tips and makeup reviews, visit Makeup Connection
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