I’m still new to makeup and don’t use lip liner right now but I’m very curious. Do I need liners? How do I know what colours to buy? Favourite brands? Give me all the deets! Thanks BIC!
@KehDee No, you don't need lip liners at all unless for the reasons in @WinglessOne informative post! You can also check out those colorless lip liners if you don't want to buy multiple colors
I'm more of a tinted balm/sheer lip formula type of person who's also lazy 😛
@KehDee I love wearing lipliners with my lipsticks and glosses. It makes the lipcolor look more put together. I love a good nude liner that can go with almost any lippie color
like CT Iconic nude and PMG contour or even MAC Whirl. Plus if you ever wanted to overline your lips a lipliner is the way to go.
I rarely use lip liners with bullets. [EDIT: I rarely use liners to achieve a clean outline or as a full base coat to make lipstick last longer.] For me, there’s no need for that. 🙂 There are exceptions, of course, and I do use them with all liquid mattes. Sometimes I use them with glosses and liquid satins.
Here’s when/why I use lip liners.
Prevent feathering: Certain bullets are chronic bleeders. (Most of my Bite bullets, for instance.) So are some liquid satins and glosses. Lining my lips with pencil before applying lipstick usually prevents bleeding/feathering. I don’t completely coat my lips in liner for this. I just outline them. Sometimes liner alone isn’t enough for this; that’s when I also add a perimeter of lip primer as extra insurance.
Improve wear time: A base coat of lip liner can help some lipsticks last longer. A few of my bullets wear away too quickly in the center of my bottom lip. Sometimes I can prevent that by applying a base coat of lip liner to that specific part of my lip. Sometimes I use lip primer for this instead, depending on the lipstick.
Change or intensify color: A base coat of liner can tweak or enhance light, pale, or sheer shades of lipstick. It’s an old trick with glosses, but it also works with bullets. Back in the 80s, I sometimes coated my lips in black liner to dramatically change or enhance various lipstick shades. Nowadays, I sometimes do this with sheer bullets, sheer or semi-sheer glosses, and certain bullets that have a color shift I can enhance with a liner.
Ombré effects: I do like to ombré various lipstick shades. Sometimes I just use 2 or 3 different lipstick shades for this. Other times, I use a liner as one of my ombré shades. Apparently there’s something called “lip contouring,” which can also be easily done with a lip liner + lipstick.
Get a crisp, clean outline: I don’t need liners to achieve this with most bullets, but I do with liquid mattes. Lining my lips first helps me prevent overlining with matte doe foot applicators, so I don’t have to do any cleanup before the matte dries down. And if you want a sharp crisp outline with most glosses, a liner’s your best friend.
What an in-depth and informative reply, @WinglessOne ! I added some of your liner favourites mentioned to my loves list to purchase at another time (as I don't have any MAC liners!)
@l8totheparty I hope you like them if you try them! MAC has 3 lines of lip liner, I think: Pro Longwear, Liptensity (which are sadly being discontinued, just like the bullets), and Lip Pencil. All 3 are great. MAC Lip Pencil in Cork is many people’s longtime favorite neutral lip liner, myself included. 🙂
Lip liners will make your lipstick last a lot longer and also makes your lips look cleaner. I really like makeup forever's lip liners and Charlotte Tilbury's lip liners especially in pillow talk for the perfect nude lip.