Essential Tips for Applying Lipstick Like a Pro

Applying lipstick may seem like a straightforward task that every woman knows how to do intuitively. However, even the simplest tasks can lead to awkward situations, especially with bright lipstick during meals. What appears easy actually requires some basic knowledge that many women wish they had before starting to use cosmetics. We, too, are concerned about this issue, so we decided to explore how to approach lipstick application properly.

Preparation

Before applying a dark shade of lipstick, it’s essential to moisturize your lips well. Any deep color tends to settle into the skin’s creases, especially if it’s dry. This isn’t immediately noticeable, but once the lipstick wears off, you’ll see the unpleasant result. A simple lip balm can help with this problem. Apply it to your lips, even if you’re using liquid lipstick. Gently blot the edges with a tissue and then apply the main color.

In addition to moisturizing products, some makeup artists recommend using a lip scrub. It will remove dead skin cells and add a natural matte finish to your lips, allowing the color to go on much smoother.

Choosing the Right Lipstick

When choosing lipstick, decide on the texture you want for your lips: glossy, natural, or matte.

Glossy Lipstick: Reflects light, drawing more attention to your lips and making them appear fuller.
Matte Lipstick: Absorbs light and is suitable for naturally full lips, visually reducing their size. Matte lipstick lasts longer on the lips than glossy but tends to be drying, so it’s essential to moisturize your lips beforehand. To add volume to a matte color and make your lips more attractive, you can apply a bit of regular balm to the center.
Natural Texture: The golden middle. Moderately shiny, moderately matte, in other words, imitating the natural characteristics of the skin.

In addition to these basic textures, there are others such as metallic, shimmering, silky, semi-matte, creamy, and many more. When choosing one of them, consider the features of your lips and skin color.

Intensity and Color

After choosing the texture, decide how intense the color should be. A more natural application where your natural color is clearly visible, or very intense, fully conveying the shade you have chosen. After that, you can proceed to the actual selection of the shade.

If your skin tone is closer to warm, then the lipstick color should also be from the warm palette: brick, golden beige, orange-pink, or bright red.

For cooler skin tones, bluish nuances, grayish, dark red, or all shades of bluish-purple work well.

For neutral skin color, any colors will do. But, of course, rules are made to be broken, and sometimes a cool color on warm skin can be a hit. Sometimes lipstick suits someone perfectly, and for someone, it can be completely unusual. Therefore, the best option is to try on the lipstick, and if you really like it, buy it!

Application Method

Once the color question is resolved, it remains to decide how best to apply it to the lips: with a brush or directly from the tube. When deciding on this issue, consider the following factors.

For the Brush:

The brush should be pointed, and the application itself will be much neater and more precise, so the need for a lip liner is eliminated. Plus, there’s less risk of getting lipstick on your teeth.
With a brush, you can achieve a gradient effect. And in general, many find it much easier to apply lipstick with a brush. If you lean towards this method, remember that it’s best to start applying from the center, gradually moving towards the edges. This way, you will highlight the lip line, and any inaccuracies can always be corrected with a concealer.

For the Tube:

Lipstick in a tube is much easier to transport, and the application becomes much more mobile. Using this method, it’s much easier to achieve color saturation. But there is a risk of inaccuracies, especially if the shape of the lipstick is not pointed.

Some makeup artists practice a more original application method—using a finger, arguing that this way, you can evenly distribute the color over the surface of the lips and avoid getting lipstick on your teeth. Also, with the pad of your finger, you can refine some naturally imperfect areas, such as folds or curves.

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