The Classic Red Lip

You'll probably have noticed that I refer to my 'journey of make-up discovery' a lot on this blog. In fact that is the basis behind all my beauty posts. What it basically means is that I'm a bit of a late bloomer with the whole beauty thing, so I've been using this blog to not only motivate me to try new things, but document my discoveries. 

This post is exactly that. I've been longing for a good ol' classic red lipstick for yonks now, but being olive skinned, my search for 'the one' is a lot trickier than walking into my local Boots and picking a colour I like the look of. And what with my forever changing hair, up until recently I saw it as more effort than it was worth. 

But I convinced myself that it would be a worthy investment, and that it would add a new dimension to some of my looks. I tried Estee Lauder, YSL and Dior, but they were all too blue in tone and shiny. I wanted a deep matte. So I popped into a MAC store (where I kind of knew I'd end up anyway) and had some help from the staff who were lovely. In fact, I played no part in the choosing of these colours. I left it to the professionals, who highly recommended Ruby Roo lipstick for ANY skin tone, and Cherry lip liner to give it the depth and warmth I wanted. Wham bam thank you ma'am. Sorted. 

The next hurdle to get over was using lip liner. Never used it before, or really understood its purpose, however after playing around a little and doing a bit of research, I get it!!

So, in the hope that there are others out there like me who are a bit befuzzled by the idea of colouring in your lips, I've put together a brief but helpful guide to getting an even cupid's bow and making your lipstick last longer. 

 1. Start with the cupid's bow first. It's the hardest part to do, so get that done first and everything else will fall into place. If your lips are a bit chapped or dry, thinly coat in concealer or powdered foundation to create an even base. Starting in the middle of your lip, use the angles of your cupids bow to create an X shape. This should help you get both sides even. Don't rush this. Once you've sorted out the center, follow the lines down to the corners of your mouth. 

 2. Start from the corners of your mouth and line one side of your lower lip until you come to the middle. Then move over to the other side, and connect. 

 3. Colour in your lips. I start from the corners and work my way in. Some people just use liner to line their lips, but the girls in the MAC store recommended filling in my lips to help the colour last longer. You don't want a crazy clown mouth. And it really works. Yesterday I ate lunch and went through two cups of tea and it was fine and dandy. 

 4. Now select your chosen lipstick. As I've said for my chosen classic lip look, Ruby Red suits me best, but the brilliant thing with lipsticks and liners is that you can mix and match to create a shade that works for you. 

 5. Ta daa! To sharpen up the edges or neaten things up a bit, you can use a concealer pen around the edge of your lips and blend outwards. 

So there you have it. Pretty simple I know, but for someone like me who has never used lip liner before, it's a daunting 'where the hell do i start' situation. Now that I've got over that hurdle, let the MAC lipstick addiction commence.