I stumbled across in a makeup tutorial once, doing ombrè, or contoured lips.  It also popped up in one of my emails where Stephanie Montes, a beauty editor from The Zoe Report did a contoured lip.  Ok, now my interest was piqued.

Doing a search for inspiration of ombrè lips, I found all kinds of variations!  And here I will break it down on how to do them!

 

-Dark Red Lips

This was a little bit tricky, because basically you have to blend black liner with red lipstick.  I personally used Essence’s Long Lasting Lipstick in Dare To Wear, but basically you find a shade of red that’s flattering to your skin tone!  I’ve never bought black lip liner, & do you know what I used?  Eyeliner!  Fill your lips in as you normally would, with red lipstick.  Then outline your lips with the black liner, concentrating a little bit more on the corners, & use your fingers to blend.  If you’ve gone too heavy handed on the liner, you can always blot it off & add more lipstick.

 

-Stained Lips

This actually quite popular among K pop stars; the stained lip look.  Basically you would need to coat your lips with concealer / foundation; & carefully put on some color at opening of your lips.  Using your finger, you would just tap them to blend the colors.

 

-Frosted Fuschia

Here I actually used a bright pink color called Melted Fuchsia Liquified Long wear Lipstick by Tarte.  I have a weakness for makeup sets, & sometimes I get some really bright colors that I would never ordinarily wear.  But now I can!  If I wear it by itself, it’s just a bright almost neon pink lipstick; however when you do an ombrè lip, you end up blending it with other colors that make it less distracting & actually prettier!  I line my lips & put it also on the outer corners with the Tarte lipstick, & put on a frosted pink lip gloss in the center.  When blending I usually tap the color with my finger, & voila!  A frosted fuchsia ombrè lip!

 

-Pink With a Highlight

This is actually quite pretty, & easy as well!  I used a lip stain, a Cream Lip Stain in Cherry Blossom by Sephora Collection.  I generally wouldn’t recommend using a lip stain when it comes to contouring your lips; because usually you want to be able to blend, & that’s virtually impossible with a lip stain.  Here, it’s not a problem!

Just put on the lip stain as you normally would (like any lip color) & then dab a bit of highlighter on the center of your lips.  I used NYX’s Illuminator, using my finger to dab in the center.  If you have a cream / liquid highlighter, that works as well!  That actually might work better for they would last longer!

 

-Stained Bottom Lip

I saw a picture of this & thought this was interesting.  This also gave me a chance to use one of the bright lipsticks that I get (again in a set) & utilize in a new way!  Here I used French Kiss by Laura Mercier on my top lip.  Put some lipstick slightly on the top of your bottom lip.  Take your highlighter (again, I’m using NYX’s Illuminator) & tap it onto your bottom lip.  The tapping allows you to apply color, as well as blend at the same time.  Afterward I just pressed my lips together, blotted my lips with a tissue, to lighten the overall colors.

 

-Red With a Neon Pink

Here I paired my staple red lipstick, Essence’s Long Lasting Lipstick in Dare To Wear, with a highlight in a bright almost neon pink that I had picked up in H&M’s new makeup line: a lipstick in Tea Rose.  I lined my lips & outer corners with the red, & then filled in the center with the pink lipstick.

 

-Frosted Berry

I wondered why I thought it would be a challenge to do an ombrè lip, for some of these are really easy!  Here I just put on a dark berry shade all over my lips, & again dab some highlighter in the center.  (Keep in mind I’m going to keep using NYX’s Illuminator), & then press your lips together.  For more dramatic effect, you could add more highlighter & distribute it slightly outside the center, & press your lips again!

 

-Smoky Nude

This is I think is for the gals that love a nude lip, but would like to give it more dimension.  Here I put on a nude lipstick, here I used Matte Revolution Lipstick by Urban Decay in Naked (the color is so close to my skintone that you can hardly tell I have lipstick on!) & then lined my lips with a black liner.  Using my finger again, to blend the colors.  I felt like it could be darker on the outer edges, so I line them again, but only on the outer corners, & use your finger to blend again.

 

-Magenta Rose

This is a lovely blend of colors!  I lined the outside of my lips with a magenta lip gloss Rimmel’s Stay Glossy 3D Lip Gloss in Candy Floss, while I filled in the rest with a baby pink one (Rimmel’s Stay Glossy Lip Gloss in Claridge’s Ruby).  Then I took my finger to smooth across & blend the colors together.

 

-Coral Pink

This is an interesting mix of 2 colors: pink & orange!  Who would’ve thought that these 2 colors would go well together?  I place a fuchsia color using French Kiss by Laura Mercier on the corners of my lips, & place an orange lip gloss in between.  I may tap slightly with my finger, or press my lips together to blend.

If you would like to try it yourself, keep some tissues / makeup wipes on hand.  Optional: a lip brush.  You will need the tissues / makeup wipes if you blend with your finger, & also you will find that with ombrè lips there might be some cross contaminating of colors.  i.e. when you blend your pink lipstick with a red one, you will probably find the blended colors on your lipstick, which you wouldn’t want.

Hope you liked this post & the demos!  And have fun with making your own ombrè lips!