A lip liner does two quiet jobs: it gives your lips a clean edge, and it helps lipstick stay where you put it. To choose one, decide first what you want to match. A liner close to your own lip colour, usually a nude or soft rose, works with almost everything you own. A liner matched to a particular lipstick, such as a red, makes that one shade sharper and longer-lasting. A clear liner adds no colour at all and simply holds the edge.
What Does a Lip Liner Do?
A lip liner is a firmer, drier cousin of lipstick, made to be drawn rather than swept. That firmness is the point. A line traced along the edge of the lips gives a crisp outline, and it acts as a border that helps creamy or glossy colour from drifting into the fine lines around the mouth, which is what make-up artists call feathering. Filled in across the whole lip, a liner also becomes a base that lipstick grips, so colour tends to wear more evenly through the day. Worn alone and blended, it is a soft, defined lip in its own right.
Match Your Lips or Your Lipstick?
If you are buying your first lip liner, match it to your lips. Look at the outer edge of your mouth in daylight and choose a shade as close to it as you can find, or a touch deeper. Such a liner disappears under almost any lipstick, from a sheer balm to a berry, and it is the one most people reach for every day.
If you wear one lipstick often, a red or a deep rose, match the liner to that instead. Hold the pencil against the lipstick on the back of your hand: the two should look like the same colour, or the liner very slightly deeper. A liner lighter than your lipstick shows as a ring once the colour wears, so when in doubt, go deeper rather than lighter.
Nude Lip Liners
Sisley Phyto-Lèvres Perfect Lip Liner comes with a built-in brush and sharpener, and its formula lists jojoba, aloe and kokum seed butter; shades include 1 Nude and 2 Beige Naturel. Artdeco Soft Lip Liner has a cream texture that can be blended before it sets, then wears waterproof; 113 Warm Nude is its warmer neutral. Essence 8H Matte Comfort Lipliner is a waterproof matte pencil made both to line and to fill, with 04 Rosy Nude and 03 Soft Beige among its shades. L'Oréal Paris Lip Liner Couture by Color Riche is a creamy matte pencil that defines, fills or sits beneath lipstick or gloss, and comes in 630 Beige à Nu.
- Phyto-Lèvres Perfect Lip Liner
- Soft Lip Liner
- 8H Matte Comfort Lipliner Sharpener
- Lip Liner Couture by Color Riche
Rose and Red Lip Liners
A red lip is where a liner earns its place. Red shows every wobble at the edge, and it is the colour most likely to travel, so a matched liner underneath makes the biggest difference here.
Guerlain Contour G Lip Liner has an ultra-fine tip and an integrated sharpener, with a highly pigmented, transfer-resistant formula that lists castor oil and squalane; its reds include 04 Red and 05 Ruby. Estée Lauder Double Wear Lip Liner pairs a transfer-resistant pencil with a built-in brush for softening the line, in shades such as Red and Rebellious Rose. Max Factor Colour Elixir Lip Liner is creamy and buildable, from 055 Red Poppy to 045 Rosy Berry. Sensilis Perfect Line Lip Liner is a creamy, long-wear pencil for outlining, filling or priming, in 04 Red.
Pencil or Retractable?
A classic wooden pencil is sharpened to a point, and that point is its strength: a freshly sharpened tip draws the finest line, which suits precise outlining and a defined Cupid's bow. Some houses build the sharpener in, as Sisley and Guerlain do, so the point stays fine wherever you are.
A retractable liner, also called twist-up or automatic, winds up from its case and never needs sharpening. Bourjois Velvet The Pencil and Artdeco Invisible Lip Contour both work this way. The tip is usually a little softer and rounder, which makes filling the whole lip quicker and suits a softer edge. Choose a pencil if precision matters most to you, and a twist-up if ease and travel matter more.
How to Line and Fill
- Start with smooth lips: a thin layer of lip balm, blotted, so the liner glides without dragging.
- Mark the centre of the Cupid's bow with two short strokes, then the centre of the lower lip.
- Join those points to the corners in short, light strokes rather than one long line.
- Fill in the lips with the side of the liner if you want a base that helps lipstick last.
- Apply lipstick, then soften any hard edge with a brush or a fingertip.
Keep to your natural lip line. Drawing a fraction outside it can make lips look a little fuller, but the further you go, the more the line shows as colour wears.
Keeping Lipstick in Place, and Clear Liners
If your lipstick tends to bleed at the edges, two approaches help. The first is a long-wear coloured liner, filled across the whole lip beneath your lipstick. The second is a clear liner: a colourless pencil traced just along the outline, so it holds the edge without changing your shade. Clear liners suit nudes, sheer colours and gloss, where a coloured line would show.
Artdeco Invisible Lip Contour is a twist-up clear liner made to help keep lipstick and gloss from smudging and feathering, and the house describes it as ideal for nude and delicate shades. Lancôme Idôle Make-Up Lip Liner is a creamy matte pencil, waterproof and transfer-resistant, made to pair with lipsticks and glosses. Bourjois Velvet The Pencil is a twist-up matte liner, waterproof and long-lasting, that needs no sharpener. Sleek Locked Up Super Precise Lip Liner has an ultra-fine tip and a creamy, highly pigmented, long-wear formula.
- Invisible Lip Contour 1 Lip Liner
- Idôle Make-Up Lip Liner
- Velvet The Pencil Lip Liner
- Baby You're Bad Lip Liner
Long-wear and waterproof liners are made to stay put, so take them off with care at the end of the day. We explain how in Removing Waterproof Make-Up Gently: Oils, Bi-Phase and Micellar.
How to Choose
- One liner for everything: a nude close to your own lip colour.
- A favourite red or rose: a liner matched to it, or a shade deeper.
- Lipstick that bleeds at the edges: a clear liner, or a long-wear liner filled across the lip.
- Precise lines: a sharpenable pencil. Speed and travel: a twist-up.
If you are choosing just one, begin with a nude matched to your lips. It is the liner you will use most, and the easiest way to learn what a defined edge does for every lipstick you already own.
