The Secret To Luscious Lips

Ever caught yourself staring at those perfectly plump, hydrated lips in beauty ads and wondered ‘how do they do it?’. While some people are lucky to be born with luscious lips, there’s more to an enviable pout than genetics. Looking after your lips and exploring different beauty products and treatments makes a big difference. In this post, we’ll explore a few secrets to help you achieve lips that are soft, full and utterly kissable. Let’s pucker up and get started.

Why Luscious Lips Matter?

Before we jump into the juicy details, let’s talk about why lips deserve their own spotlight in your beauty routine. Our lips are one of the most expressive parts of our face - we use them to smile, speak and seduce. But unlike the rest of our skin, lips lack oil glands. This makes them more prone to dryness and cracking when exposed to wind, sun and cold weather. Such dryness and cracking is often painful and uncomfortable, as well as looking attractive. 

Looking after your lips is therefore not just an act of vanity, but an important form of self-care. On top of avoiding painful chapped smackers, a lip beauty routine can help to fend off lip wrinkles. Going the extra mile to make your lips look luscious could meanwhile make you appear sexier and more youthful. But before we start talking about make-up and fillers, let’s start with foundation: hydration and nourishment.

Hydration Hacks

Good hydration can help prevent dryness and keep lips looking smooth. Making sure that you’re drinking lots of water is important for hydrating your lips from the inside, but it’s also worth hydrating your lips from the outside too. 

Lip balms are one of the best ways to keep the outside of your lips moist. There are many different lip balms that you can choose from, but a few of the best lip balm brands for hydration include:

• Vaseline Lip Therapy: A classic, affordable option made from petroleum jelly.
• Burts Beeswax Lip Balm: A vitamin-E-rich 100% natural balm made from beeswax. 
• Rhode Peptide Lip Treatment: A nourishing lip balm from Hailey Bieber’s brand Rhode Skin that contains peptides, shea butter and cupuacu. 
• Aquaphor Lip Repair: A dermatologist-recommended balm for quickly repairing chapped lips.

Avoid licking your lips as this can dry them out - saliva evaporates quickly and leaves behind bacteria and enzymes that irritate the skin. Similarly, avoid smoking if you want to reduce dryness and lip wrinkles.  

Makeup Magic

Now that your lips are prepped with balm, let’s amp up the visual wow factor with some makeup sorcery. Lipsticks are a great way to make lips pop by adding a burst of colour. But before you add this, consider first adding a layer of foundation of concealer to your lip line - this can help erase unevenness to create a plumper and more voluminous look.

Some people prefer matte lipsticks while others prefer glossy lipsticks. Matte lipsticks tend to provide a bold and sophisticated look that is ideal for formal events, while lip gloss has a shiny and more youthful look. You can add a layer of gloss over matte lipstick for a juicy 3D effect, but try to keep layers thin to avoid a gloopy look.

Consider experimenting with different brands and tones. Consider nude colours for a more subtle look, and deeper reds for a more dramatic look. With lip glosses, look into options like Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb and Maybelline Lifter Gloss which offer a great non-sticky shine. You could also consider looking into lipsticks containing peppermint oil, which can act as a subtle plumping agent, but can have a tingling effect that not everyone likes. 

Wrinkle Reducers

As we get older, our lips can lose volume and may develop fine lines. There are several measures you can take to reduce the effects of aging that are worth considering while you’re still young.

The first is to give up smoking. Yes, we’ve already touched on this in the section about hydration hacks, but it’s worth reiterating - smoking is a leading cause of lip wrinkles. In fact, they’re often nicknamed ‘smoker’s lines’. Both the heat and the action of taking a drag contributes to wrinkling. The earlier you quit, the less likely you are to develop these wrinkles.

Wearing lip balm with SPF protection in the sun can meanwhile prevent sun damage to lips. Sunburn is another leading cause of lip wrinkles. Some of the best lip balms for providing sun protection include Hello Sunday Lip Balm and Soltan Active Lip Suncare. 

Finally, you can also look into applying retinol-based lip treatments at night. Retinol is a form of vitamin A that has been proven to help slow down wrinkling by increasing skin cell turnover. Some studies even suggest that it may be able to reverse fine wrinkles, which is useful to know if you already have lip wrinkles.  

Trying Treatments

Of course, if you want to compete with the likes of Kylie Jenner, you may want to consider professional lip treatments like using dermal filler. This involves injecting a substance into the lips to make them physically fuller. Finding a highly-rated clinic is important in order to achieve the right look - an experienced cosmetic injector will know exactly how much to inject depending on whether you want a subtle look or juicier look.

Options like Botox can also be worth exploring. This is another form of injectable that instead paralyses wrinkles - which could help to conceal lip wrinkles if you already have them.

None of these solutions are permanent so be prepared to arrange regular treatments if you want to keep your lips looking the same way. 

The Secret To Lucious Lips

To sum things up, the secret to luscious lips is:

• Hydration: Drink plenty of water, apply lip balm and avoid licking those lips.
• Makeup: Use matte lipsticks to help lips pop and lip glosses to add sheen. 
• Wrinkle reduction: Consider quitting smoking, wear SPF lip balm in the sun, and look into retinol-based balms.
• Treatments: Explore fillers and Botox to further add plumpness and reduce wrinkles.