Red lips are classic, beautiful, glamorous, and they're a great way for anyone to feel a little more alive on one of those drab, blah kind of days, or even just everyday. I personally love red lipstick and I wear it all the time, I go through phases with it, sometimes I wear it every day, other times I wear it less, either way, it's a beautiful color and it looks great on everyone, whether you want to go dark and bold for an evening out, wear it bright and lively for a lunch date, or even wear it just because. The problem most people have with red lips is they either don't feel confident enough to wear it, or they don't know how to wear it. It is true that red lips are a little more high maintenance than a nude or a pink, but they're well worth the extra work. Red lipstick is known for feathering and bleeding, or just highlighting any little crack in your lips, which is one of the reasons so many people I talk to don't want to wear it, and don't want to wear those long lasting formulas that leave your lips feeling like plastic. Little do they know, there are several methods to avoid those plastic like lipsticks and that nasty feathering.
The first thing I should say is that before you wear any kind of bold lipstick, make sure your lips are exfoliated of any dead skin and are very well moisturized. Try to avoid using ordinary chap sticks because these actually can cause more damage. The reason is that chap sticks tend to lock out the moisture, so you just have to keep reapplying and your lips really don't end up any more moisturized. And I know some of you chap stick lovers out there will want to argue, but don't. Trust me on this, stop buying el-cheapo chap sticks and your lips will feel much better. The better alternatives are to either spend a little extra and get something like a Burt's Bees lip balm (which those things work wonders), or to exfoliate your lips regularly and apply Vaseline. The latter is my favorite.
The first method to avoid bleeding lipstick is the one I use all the time with non long lasting lipsticks. I apply with a lip brush (not only does this help with the feathering, but it also gives you more accuracy) and then take a tissue and blot my lips. Some people will blot and then reapply, whatever works best for you, but I just blot.
The second method is to apply a bit of your foundation or liquid concealer to your lips and then apply the lipstick over top. I used to do this all the time and I find it works very well, however I have noticed that sometimes the foundation or concealer will mix into the lipstick as you apply the lipstick and you end up needing to apply more, but not always. An optional step is to apply concealer around the lips after putting on the lipstick using a clean lip brush.
Thirdly, you can put on the lipstick, then take one ply of tissue (separate the tissue so you only have one half of the thickness) and then take any kind of translucent or pressed powder on a small blush brush, put the ply of tissue over your lips, and then powder over the tissue. You can also pair up this method with the foundation method, or the next method.
The final method I know of is probably the most well known, and this is to use lip liner. Lip liners can be tricky, due to the fact that it is close to impossible to find one in the exact shade of your lipstick. A way to combat this so the lip liner doesn't influence the color of your lipstick, is to use a clear lip liner, however if you can't find a clear lip liner or only have an ordinary liner around, fill your entire lip in, don't just outline your lips. There are two reasons for this, one, so you don't have a ring around your lips that is a different shade, and secondly, if your lipstick wears off, you'll be left with a rather impressive line around your lips. So fill your whole lip in with the liner, then apply the lipstick. Additionally, you can blot, or apply the powder method.
That's it for this post, but I will post a link to a video by Lisa Eldridge on finding the right lipstick for you below.
As always, if you have a request for me to review a product, or you have questions about something makeup related, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can do!
The first thing I should say is that before you wear any kind of bold lipstick, make sure your lips are exfoliated of any dead skin and are very well moisturized. Try to avoid using ordinary chap sticks because these actually can cause more damage. The reason is that chap sticks tend to lock out the moisture, so you just have to keep reapplying and your lips really don't end up any more moisturized. And I know some of you chap stick lovers out there will want to argue, but don't. Trust me on this, stop buying el-cheapo chap sticks and your lips will feel much better. The better alternatives are to either spend a little extra and get something like a Burt's Bees lip balm (which those things work wonders), or to exfoliate your lips regularly and apply Vaseline. The latter is my favorite.
The first method to avoid bleeding lipstick is the one I use all the time with non long lasting lipsticks. I apply with a lip brush (not only does this help with the feathering, but it also gives you more accuracy) and then take a tissue and blot my lips. Some people will blot and then reapply, whatever works best for you, but I just blot.
The second method is to apply a bit of your foundation or liquid concealer to your lips and then apply the lipstick over top. I used to do this all the time and I find it works very well, however I have noticed that sometimes the foundation or concealer will mix into the lipstick as you apply the lipstick and you end up needing to apply more, but not always. An optional step is to apply concealer around the lips after putting on the lipstick using a clean lip brush.
Thirdly, you can put on the lipstick, then take one ply of tissue (separate the tissue so you only have one half of the thickness) and then take any kind of translucent or pressed powder on a small blush brush, put the ply of tissue over your lips, and then powder over the tissue. You can also pair up this method with the foundation method, or the next method.
The final method I know of is probably the most well known, and this is to use lip liner. Lip liners can be tricky, due to the fact that it is close to impossible to find one in the exact shade of your lipstick. A way to combat this so the lip liner doesn't influence the color of your lipstick, is to use a clear lip liner, however if you can't find a clear lip liner or only have an ordinary liner around, fill your entire lip in, don't just outline your lips. There are two reasons for this, one, so you don't have a ring around your lips that is a different shade, and secondly, if your lipstick wears off, you'll be left with a rather impressive line around your lips. So fill your whole lip in with the liner, then apply the lipstick. Additionally, you can blot, or apply the powder method.
That's it for this post, but I will post a link to a video by Lisa Eldridge on finding the right lipstick for you below.
As always, if you have a request for me to review a product, or you have questions about something makeup related, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can do!