ost days I'm not a lipstick girl, I stick with swiping on some lipliner that matches my natural lip color and I'm good to go. Over the years, though, I've come to really enjoy playing with the different looks I can achieve with fun lip colors. I used to think that lipstick was super high maintenance, but it was just because I was using really low quality lipsticks and wasn't applying liner beforehand to help the lipstick last. While I don't think I'll ever be a daily lipstick kind of girl, I really love how putting on lipstick can totally amp up my look and make me feel sexy, bad ass, or quirky.
Have you ever tried unnatural lip colors? I don't remember what it was that made me obsessed with the idea of unnatural colored lips, but I ran out to the MAC counter and bought a stick of purple lipstick. Since then I've added orange, florescent pink, and black to my repertoire and it's really fun to have crazy options for those days I need a little kick in the pants.
Tips for great lip color:
Start with a base. Make sure your lips are moisturized. I usually rub on some avocado oil with lavender essential oil a few minutes before I put on my lips, it helps them stay soft and moisturized under the lipstick.
Line your entire lips, not just the edges. This will help your lipstick stay on and keep from wearing off when you eat/drink.
Apply your lipstick. I swipe on the color using the tube to get the centers and then I use a small brush to get the edges so they're crisp and precise. Some girls seem to have the skill to flawlessly apply lipstick straight from the tube but I am not one of them. I have to carefully paint the edges on so I don't look like a 6 year old just coming from raiding her mom's makeup case.
If I know I'll be out and about for a long time with my lips on, or if I'm going out to eat or drink and think I might need to touch up my lips I'll bring my lip color and brush in my purse so I can duck into the bathroom and reapply if needed. All of the lip colors I'm sharing here wear really well and I typically only have my lipstick with me for insurance, though I rarely find that I need to reapply.
This is my absolute favorite red. Bright, saturated, pure red. This is a great pin-up red. Motives was the first lipstick I really liked and felt good wearing all day. Before that I'd dabbled in drugstore brands but they always felt gross and dry and didn't last. I figured I just didn't like lipstick, but after trying the Motives stuff I realized that I probably just needed to start exploring some better makeup brands. This stuff doesn't dry out my lips and feels creamy and rich.
I'm not a big pink girl, but I do like a saturated pink/fuchsia on the occasion. This color from Radiant is perfect, and Lime Crime does a similar color, Centrifuschia, which I also like. It looks like Radiant is no longer around (which is a bummer because part of their business was fighting sex trafficking!), but Lime Crime's color and texture is pretty much a match for this one.
If I'm feeling a little more playful, I'll go full on pink. I don't much care for more pastel shades of pink but this bright, solid pink is just right. Lime Crime's lipsticks are super opaque, so they're great for achieving bright colors
For purple lips, I like to do a bit of an ombre from darker edges, to lighter insides. I'll put on a darker purple first, like MAC's Up the Amp and then apply something lighter like Lime Crime's D'Lilac or Airborne Unicorn and then blend them a bit. I don't do purple too often but it's super fun to play with!
Lime Crime's colors can be too intense sometimes, for what I want, so I like to blend them with other colors to get the look I want. I like an orange lip, but Lime Crime's My Beautiful Rocket is like crazy orange, so to get it a bit more natural I top it with Motive's Tomato Red which is more of a regular slightly orange red. The combo gives me just the right amount of orange which not being too unnatural. Motives doesn't make that exact shade anymore, but their Red Coral is a similar color.
This is one that Motives no longer carries, but I think their Berry Sexy looks closest to this color. I like this one for those times when I'm feeling a little darker and moody, but don't want to go full on black. Sometimes I'll ombre black and Vamp to darken it up a little bit more.
I secretly love black lipstick. It's just so bold and graphic and it makes me feel a bit like a super villain bad ass. Black lips are definitely for those more bold days, but I still love having the option in my makeup bag. My first time doing black lips I used MAC's Blacktrack eyeliner to get the look, but upon liking it I decided I should invest in some real lipstick. I knew Lime Crime had a black, but I asked readers to share their favorite black lipsticks and I went with one that was recommended, Impulse Cosmetics' Apocalyptic. It's nice and opaque, but still feels creamy and light.
![This print feels even more relevant today. We all joke about the dumpster fire of [insert year here], but the important message of this image to me is that *we persist* through the horrors. We stand, we fight— maybe for ourselves, maybe for oth](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/574dddd6d51cd4bc35c1609a/1730935170369-03GPKQ5NF73VAE65RHO6/image-asset.jpeg)
