All About the Lips

Hi, everyone! Today, I want to talk to you about lips and lip colors.

Lip color can make or break a look. You have to choose a lip color that suits your skin tone and the look you're going for, of course.

I don't know about you but I feel more confident and more (errrrm) beautiful with "dark" lip colors on. And when I say "dark," I don't mean vampire-ish and gothic shades. I'm thinking of shades along the lines of Ever Bilena's Mirrored Mocha and Burgundy Shine, San San's creamy matte lipsticks... you get the idea? I'm not saying that I don't like wearing nude or MLBB (my-lips-but-better) shades, ok? It's just that there's something in darker lip colors that makes me feel more confident.

Take red lipsticks, for example. I'm not bold enough to sport deep red lips on a daily basis but I still try to from time to time. The thing with a red or any bold lip color is that it's fine on its own. I mean, you don't have to spend a lot of time to do your eyes when you have deep red lips on. The lips are a statement on their own. Wearing bold lip colors is one way to fierce-ify a look without spending a lot of time on the rest of your face.

Not so deep of a red but still red

Here are some tips in applying lipstick from fashion writer Camilla Morton, as seen in her book, "How to Walk in High Heels." If you're not familiar with this book, click *here* to read my review about it.

Pretty simple but really helpful tips. In addition to those tips, here are some more tricks I've learned.

1. Keep your lips moisturized by applying lip balm or lip moisturizers. I recommend applying the lip balm right before you start with your makeup routine to give enough time for it to be absorbed into the lips. That way, when it's time to apply lipstick or lipliner, your lips won't be too "slippery," if you know what I mean. You can try using tinted lip balms or those color-changing moisturizers for a sheer and natural color.

2. Try exfoliating your lips once in a while, too! I usually use the toothbrush method in exfoliating my lips but you can use a lip scrub, of course. If you want to know how you can make your own lip scrub using ingredients that you can easily find in your kitchen, click on the following links :)

• DIY sugar lip scrub

• DIY honey lip scrub

3. To make your lip color last longer on your lips, line and fill in your lips using a lipliner first. I find lipliners very useful in making sheer lipsticks look more opaque. A nude lipliner is a must-have, at least, for me, especially since I have uneven lip color. 

4. I recommend bringing your lipstick with you in your bag in case you need to retouch. Your lipstick will fade after several hours (unless it's really long-wearing, of course) and you wouldn't want your lipstick to fade and leave you with outlined bare lips, would you? That's also why I fill in and not only line my lips before applying lipstick.

5. If you feel that a lipstick is just too dark for the look you're going for, try to tone the color down using a lighter shade of lip gloss. This can work the other way around as well.

6. To give the lips more dimension, try wearing gradient lips.

See how the inner parts of my lips are coated with a slightly lighter shade than that on the outer parts? You can do it the other way around, too. For example, you can apply a lip stain on the inner parts of your lips and then just leave the rest bare or coated with a nude shade for a natural-looking, just-bitten look.

7. To make your lips appear fuller without using lip plumpers, you can try lining your lips a little beyond your natural lip line. Don't go overboard to avoid clown lips ;] You can also use a white eyeliner to highlight your cupid's bow. You can also try applying lipgloss over your lipstick, but only on the center part of the lips.

8. Don't throw away broken lipsticks because you can still save them. Click *here* to find out how! :)

I hope you find these tips and tricks helpful! If you have more tips to share, feel free to leave them as comments below! :D

I'm leaving you with some red-lipped vain shots. Haha. T_T

This is what red lips do to me O_O