Master overdrawing your lip line
When you think of celebrities with lush, full lips, who comes to mind? If it’s Kylie Jenner, yes, she’s admitted to having lip fillers in the past, but she also uses a quick trick also popular with stars like her sisters Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner, as well as the likes of Jennifer Lopez, who swears she’s ‘tweakment’ free.
It involves slightly filling in the dip in the lip’s cupid’s bow to enhance the shape of your lips. If you take a lip liner and apply it ever so slightly over the edges of your natural lip line, they look much bigger particularly when you use a colour very close to that of your natural lips and follow their natural shape. Choose a liner that glides on easily and doesn’t skip or tug and make sure the finished line is even and symmetrical. You might have to practice a few times first to ensure you stay close to your own line. Fill lips with a very similar colour crème lipstick that isn’t too matte.
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Try a plumping gloss
Plumping glosses wont inflate your pout significantly but they will cause lips to tingle and increase blood flow, making them look slightly deeper in colour. They do this by containing natural ingredients like cinnamon, menthol/peppermint, capsicum or ginger that cause the blood to rush to the surface of the lips, causing a flush of colour and slight swelling. Often they will also contain super-hydrating ingredients like Hyaluronic Acid that moisturise and help temporarily smooth out the surface of your lips, helping with that fuller effect. Their brilliant shine helps extend the illusion and they last really well.
Contour the edges
Shading the outer corners of your lips with a lip pencil in a shade slightly deeper than your own lips, focuses attention in the center of your pout. Leave the center of the lip bare and add a lighter or clear gloss. Or you could follow Huda Beauty’s Huda Kattan and use an ashy creme contour stick or a touch of bronzer below the bottom edge of your lips and blend. The slight shadow will make lips look bigger. Alternatively take some concealer on a lip brush and use it to sharpen the corners and edges of your lip line.
Highlight with gloss
Choosing to finish your pout with a reflective gloss delivers shine that makes lips look much more dimensional than matte. Topping an overlined lip with patent-shine gloss, especially one with a subtle fine reflective shimmer gives the most believable lip boost you can get without a needle involved. Just a dot in the center of the mouth will accentuate the fullest part, or apply all over for intense 3D shine.
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Use a lip primer
When lips are dry and puckered they don’t look their best, product can settle in lines and catch on flakes. Exfoliate using a dedicated sugar scrub and then applying a smoothing balm or primer. This will create a smooth, plump surface for lipstick and gloss to adhere to, making lips appear more full and the colour lasts longer too. It also helps lips retain hydration for several hours so they will look more lush.
Highlight your cupid’s bow
While highlighter has mostly been retired in favour of an understated, all-over glow, there is one good use for those pans of intensely illuminating products. Wherever you apply the shimmery powder or cream will create the illusion of being more prominent, so when you dab a touch just above your upper lip it will help emphasise the shape of your mouth.
