Pucker Up – Lipstick Tips

Many of you madames out there don’t go a day without lipstick or some type of cosmetic product on your lips. Having luscious, seductive lips is a natural — almost expected — practice in our society. Little does anyone remember that as early as the 1770s, some countries passed laws condemning lipstick. According to the British Parliament in the 1770s, “women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft!”

Well, doggone. Aren’t we lucky to be in the 21st century? To celebrate our freedom to be fly and kissable, not to mention seductive, here are some lipstick color tips for you, thanks to makeup stylist Samantha Smarte.

• Go bold. One of the great things about having a deep complexion is being able to wear bold shades that can overpower women with fair skin. Color selections include: gold, bronze, orange, fuchsia and silver makeup. Just be sure you wear these bright colors judiciously; select a feature to which to draw attention and focus on that, leaving the rest of your face neutral.
• Practice being feathery with your liner. When outlining your lips with a lip liner, don’t press down too hard. Apply soft brushstrokes around your lips, and pull in the lip liner color a little bit, to create a gradient. The black or heavy lipliner style is unnatural and unattractive. Here’s a video. Product pick: CoverGirl Outlast Smoothwear Lip Liner
• Use a multi-tonal approach. There’s no rule that says you have to apply just one lip color to your lips. Sometimes, blending colors can give you magical results. The trick to doing so is to approach your lips like you would a painting. If you have lips that aren’t naturally defined, apply a dark liner around your lips first, and then a light liner on top of the dark one, leaving the upper portion of your lip slightly more shaded in than the bottom. Then apply a warm-toned lipstick to fill your lips. Finally, apply a light-colored lip gloss to just the bottom of your lips (not the top), to allow light to hit that portion of your lips and give a nice illusion of dimension. Product pick: NARS “Turkish Delight” lip gloss
• Natural is Hot. Enough said. When aiming for a subtle yet chic lip, all you really need is a soft liner around your lips, applied in a feathery manner (as mentioned above) and a great nude or earth-toned color to give you some natural sass. The ‘Siss’ lip color by M.A.C. works wonders for this technique. Product pick: M.A.C. Cosmetics – “Siss” lipstick color