Lip Color 101

A beauty tip that most experts tout is to your best feature and play it up. If you are complimented often on your lips, consider yourself lucky, it's time to accentuate them. Here's 18 tips on how to apply lipstick:

• Don't play up the eyes and the mouth Women who wear heavy eye makeup and dark lipstick can look clownish. If you want to wear red lipstick, keep the rest of your makeup light. If you are playing up the eyes, keep your mouth light with a gloss or light lip color that doesn't stand out.

• For "plump" lips, apply liner just outside your natural lip line. Dab a bit of gloss in the middle of your bottom lip.
• How to apply lipstick? I don't believe in rules to applying lipstick. Some women use special lipstick brushes. I own one and hardly ever use it. Others use their middle finger. Most women apply right from the tube. Choose what's right for you, as long as the color gets on the lips, you're good.

• Use liner on your lips as a base. Lipstick will last longer if you fill in your lips with the liner first. If you're using light lipstick, try a nude liner. Then slick your lipstick on top.

• Lip gloss is infamous for wearing off fast, but if you fill in lips first with the liner, the gloss has something to stick to.
• You can line before or after you apply lipstick or gloss. Some women prefer to apply liner first, arguing that you won't be able to see the natural line of your lips if you apply lipstick first. But I find lips look more natural when I line lips after I apply lipstick.
• Never use a dark liner with light lipstick. Defined lips are great, but make sure the liner matches the lipstick or gloss. Dark liner and light lips is tacky.

• Never use a test lipstick on your lips. It's just plain unhygienic. Instead, test lipstick on your fingertips. It's a closer fit to your lips than the back of your hand.
• Don't throw out a bad color lipstick. Beauty editors know you can create a great lipcolor by blending lipsticks you don't like. You can also color in lips with a darker liner before applying a lipstick that's too bright.
• Keep lipstick off glass. Discreetly lick your lips before taking a sip from a glass. It works!

• Keep lipstick off your teeth with this trick. After applying lipstick, take your index finger and pop it in your mouth, then pull it out. The excess lipstick will come off on your finger rather than your teeth.
• Lipstick can act as a blush. But never use blush as a lipstick.
• The older you are, the "creamier" your lips should look. If your lips are thinned out and wrinkled, avoid matte or a gloss and stick with a creamy lipstick.
• Not all lipstick shades look good on everyone.Your skin color will determine what shades are right on you. You may like a lipstick on your friend, but it may not look good on you. Orange or brown shades, including corals, look good on few people. These shades tend to make teeth appear yellow.
• Camouflage yellowed teeth. To downplay a yellow cast to teeth, try lipsticks with a bluish undertone. Shades that work include plums, pinks, wines and violets.
• Don't throw out a broken lipstick. If your lipstick breaks off, simply take off the broken portion with a tissue, then slowly wave a lit match under the broken piece of lipstick. When it's melted a bit, put it back on the base, swivel it down and put it in the fridge -- uncovered -- for 30 minutes.

• Lipstick done? You might notice there's still a bit of lipstick down in the tube. Scrape out the last bits with a cotton swap or orange stick and mix it with Vaseline or lip gloss in a lipstick palette. Use a lip brush to apply.
• You can also scoop out the lipstick remnants from the bottoms of the tube and puts them in a pill case (the one with the days of the week individually capped). Then nuke the pill case until the lipstick melts. Then use a lip brush and enjoy new lipstick. This is perfect for the purse.

Lip Tricks from Avon

Liptricks right from Avon.com

Use lip pencils, gloss and concealer to transform lips.

1. TO MAKE COLOR LAST LONGER
Apply lip liner to entire lip area, use a lip brush to gently blend any hard lines around the edges and then apply a gloss or a lipstick.

2. TO TRANSFORM A LIPSTICK SHADE
Use a lip pencil as a base for lipstick to make it look browner, deeper or redder, depending on the shade of the pencil. For a shinier finish, use lipstick as a base for gloss.

3. TO MAKE LIPS LOOK FULLER
Apply a highlighter slightly above the natural contour of the Cupid's bow. Apply desired shade of lipcolor. Using a lip liner in a shade that matches lipcolor, follow the outer dimensions of the lips and trace around the lip line. Dab gloss on the center of lower lip.

4. TO MAKE LIPS LOOK THINNER
Blend foundation or concealer lightly over the edges of your lips. Dust translucent powder over the area. Using a nude lip liner, outline lips within the natural lip line. Fill lips with a pale shade of lipstick.

Tips For Applying Lipgloss

Sick of your gloss looking like you just stepped out of the locker room after PE in high school? Well ... here's a couple of tips (paraphrased from About.com).

1. Apply properly: Don't put on lip gloss like you would lipstick. Instead of swiping it on your lips, apply the gloss to the middle of your bottom lip only and then rub your lips together. This will keep the gloss from being gloppy and thick!
2. Put gloss on over lipstick: Try just a bit of gloss over a neutral lipstick or even a neutral colored gloss over a striking lipstick. Same as #1, just a bit on the bottom lip and spread it out from there!
3. Too much gloss?: Smack lips between a tissue paper, just like you would lipstick.
4. Make gloss pop by lightening lips with concealer before adding colored lip gloss.

Try some of these tricks and tips and don't forget to check out GLAZEWEAR Lip Gloss at www.youravon.com/BrittaOConnell for a chance to enter to win a 2010 Chevy Malibu 4 door sedan (approximate retail value: $29,000).

Contact me today!

References:

• http://beauty.about.com/od/lipgloss/qt/lipgloss1.htm

How To Choose A Lipstick Color

We've all done it. Probably a million times. I know I have. When I was in college, I had a habit of going to CVS, Target, Walmart, Macy's, Filene's ... almost anywhere they sold makeup and looking at the colors of lipstick.

My biggest problem (and yes, I know I've been told a million times by a hundred different people that women will kill for what I have) ... my biggest problem is my lips ... they put Angelina Jolie to shame. They are huge. They are prominent and they are WICKED hard to find a color, style, and finish for because they are like ... BLAM! look at me ... I'm Britta's lips.

Well, I can honestly say that I've probably spent at least $500 on lipsticks and stains ... and glosses ... and lip liners ... the list is endless.

Now I know I was making a big mistake. I was looking to change my lips into something they weren't. I was picking what colors looked good to my eye in the tube. Not what looked good on my lips.

Bobbi Brown once said "[i]f I had to teach someone just one thing about lip color it would be this: Find a lipstick that looks good on your face when you are wearing absolutely no makeup."

You should always look for a color of lipstick that is one or two colors lighter or darker than your natural lip color. And always try them out in natural lighting (aka the sun) because the overhead lights in most stores distort the color of the lipstick.

Also, for a little more in depth help, we'll go into skin tones:

- Fair skin: try shades such as nudes in a apricot shade, pinks and light corals. Stay away from browns, which will appear boring and blah

- Medium skin: go a bit darker. You'll look awesome in roses, mauves and berries. Skip the bright reds and consider a deep burgundy instead.

- Dark skin: try a deep plum, chocolate or red. What about caramel or walnut for day, and plum or wine for evening?

Avon carries various types of lipsticks in many colors. Check out Avon's lipstick choices for the different products.