Great Lips at Any Age

I love this picture of myself.  I feel like I got my lips just perfect.  I am going to share a few tips on how I get lips like these that last me from 6 am in the morning until I have to remove my lip color after dinner at night.

There are two important steps to having great lips in middle age and beyond.  The first one is an initial base coat of moisture and the second one is reverse lining.  The reverse lining step is very important because the last thing any of us need is color migrating into the small wrinkles we all start getting around our lips and emphasizing them.

As far as a base coat of moisture the one I like best is Neutrogena Hydro Boost Hydrating Lip Treatment.  It works better than many high end brands that I have tried and it never leaves my lips greasy and I never get chapped lips while I am using it.  I use it morning and evening every day.

The next step I follow to getting good lips is lining my lips with a lipliner that is as close to the color of my lipcolor as possible.  This is an important step because my lips are extremely asymetrical so I use it to even out their shape.  I tend to line my lips right outside my natural lipline both top and bottom to make sure they look slightly fuller than they are.  This is a natural anti-ager because our lips tend to thin as we get older.  For color because I am too lazy and busy during the day to actually reapply any color, I like long lasting liquid matt finish lip color.  I fill in the lines and go over the edges of them with a thin coating of liquid lipcolor.  My favorites are Ultra Matt Lip from Colour Pop.  At $6 each, and ultra long lasting, you can't go wrong with these.  I use their matching lipliners too, which are just as reasonable at $5 a piece.  I also have a Stila liquid lipstick that gives me similar results but is about 3x the price.  As far as color goes the best advice I've been given is to match the color to your gums.  It really works although I wear a wide range of different colors.

The finishing touch is reverse lining.  I use NYX Wonder Pencil which is a steal at $4.50 each.  I line my lips just outside but touching my liner/color.  As I said previously this is a very important step because it keeps the color from migrating into the fine lines around your mouth.

Now that you have long lasting lips knowing the right way to remove the color from your delicate lip tissue is important too.  As long as you don't eat any greasy food your lips should last you all day.  Greasy foods like really greasy pizza will tend to dissolve them.  To remove your lips apply a thin coating of vaseline and remove the vaseline and the color gently with a tissue.  you may have to do this twice to dissolve and remove all the color. The vaseline has the added bonus of hydrating your lips.