This Is Why Your Lipstick Looks Bad (And How You Can Fix It)

If you're still skipping lip liner, you're doing your lips and your makeup look a huge disservice. I will always use lip liner when doing my lipstick and when I do, I will always over line them too and so do the brows. Lip liner gives you shape, structure, and control and your lipstick actually looks better with lip liner. In this video, I'm breaking down exactly why lip liner is a non-negotiable in my routine and why it should be in yours too. So our first lipstick look, which can be quite tricky, is nude lips. Now the reason why I will 100% non-negotiable wear lip liner with my nude lips is because I really like wearing really nude lips. I love the concealer lip trend that's going on right now and for me, it doesn't really work unless you have some kind of lip liner to get the lip structure and to not make you look essentially dead in the face. Unless that's what you're going for, then by all means, knock yourself out. But for most of us, when we wear a nude lip, it's mostly because we're either wearing a smoky eye or we don't really like wearing color, but we still want something on our lips to enhance our makeup look. Nude lips can look flat. They need dimension. First things first, you want to make sure your lips are prepped really well. I have the Laneige Sleeping Lip Mask right here. This is my personal one. I also have one in my kit. I keep it on my bedside table, so I'm just going to stick my finger and moisturize my lips. Make sure they're nice and hydrated. I'm a stan for this. I think it's so great. I wish this formula came in a tube so I could have it on the go, but unfortunately it doesn't and I hate running out of it, so I always make sure I have enough of it. The second step is choosing the right lip liner. I don't want to make this too complicated, but I'm going to give you two options for nude lip liners for someone who is like me, which is light to medium skin. I would probably even use these maybe on fair skin, but I would use them very, very lightly. These are two lip liners that I use on the regular depending on what lipstick I want to use them with. Traditionally, if you're thinking about contouring a lip, giving it shape, but making it look a little bit more on the natural side, you're going to want to use something that's at least one to two shades darker. The first one I have here is BFF from ColourPop. This is probably two shades darker than what I normally am, but it has a little bit of warmth to it, so it's a little bit softer. Now if I wanted to do something a little bit more contoured, a little bit sharper, I would use this one right here, which is Check Me Out from Tower 28. So as you can see, it's a little bit more brown and it's a little bit deeper. I'm going to demonstrate both so you can see how they look. So I'm going to take a little paper towel and just blot off the excess lip balm, and then I'm going to show you what one of my favorite nudes looks like without any lip liner. This is Kim KW from Charlotte Tilbury, and I'm just going to put it on. Now as you can see, that completely washed me out. My face doesn't look balanced. My lip needs some kind of structure so we can make the lipstick pop and round out the whole look. So I'm going to take this off, and one thing I like to do is I'll take my foundation brush and just tap my lips, and that helps to blend any edges around here that you may have created when wiping off the lipstick. Now I'm going to grab my mirror because I can't see far away, and I'm going to take BFF from ColourPop. This is the lightest of the two liners, and I'm just going to lightly draw, and what I'm doing is I'm drawing right on the lip line, not on the inside. And this side's a little bit higher, so I like to bring down, creating that line right there, and you can already see how that created a contour on my lip that wasn't there before. Taking the Cupid's Bow, starting right here, overdrawing just a little bit. And what this does, it creates symmetry because this side of my upper lip is much lower than this side. So there's a slight overdraw on this side, and then there's a bigger overdraw on this side. You'll see the biggest difference when I put the red lip on later in the video. Then I'm going to take my lipstick and just tap, and do you see what big of a difference that made? Now let's try it with the deeper lip liner. I'm just going to do the same thing, taking it right on the lower lip line, and I like to soften the lip liner a little bit, and starting Cupid's Bow, I'm using the flat side of the pencil, and then taking my finger and just blending the lines into the lip. Taking a little bit more on the bottom, and then grabbing my lipstick, and that's the deeper lip liner with the same exact nude lipstick. Now a couple of things you do want to avoid. You don't want to line too low, especially on the lower lip line, because then that will pull the lip down, and it'll contort the shape, and that's not what you want. Also, like I said earlier in the video, don't go too dark with your lip liner, unless that's exactly what you're going for, then by all means go right ahead. But if you want it to be a little bit more of a natural sculpted nude lip, you definitely want to make sure that you're using a lip liner that's two to maybe three shades darker than your skin and your lips. You're contouring the lip, you're giving it shape, so then when you put the nude lipstick on, which is so nude, it doesn't wash you out, but it gives it dimension, and it makes it pop. Now to make things a little extra fun, I'm going to add some gloss, just to give you an idea how it would look as a full lip look. I have the Fetal Glow Lip Balm Shimmer from Naturium. This is in the shade Cosmic. This is from my kit, so I'm just going to take some on the back of my hand, and then I'm just going to tap it. Oh, that's so pretty. Is the gloss pretty on its own? Yes. Do I prefer it like this? Also yes. This is just so much more elevated, and it rounds out the makeup and makes it look... Okay, now moving on to red lips, and I'm going to go on the record when I say that you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever catch me in a bold, colorful lip, whether it's red or bright pink or purple, without a lip liner. And I'm going to show you why, because once you see my lips without lip liner in this red lipstick, you're going to understand why a lip liner is so desperately needed. Honestly, once you start wearing your red lips or your bold lips with a lip liner, and you see how structured and crisp and gorgeous it can be, you won't ever want to go back. Because there's something about how lip liner creates that shape that lipstick cannot replicate. Maybe a liquid lipstick, but that's a different video. We're talking about lip liner right now. As we've discussed already, a lip liner gives the lips shape and structure, and that is paramount when you're talking about a gorgeous, crisp, red lip. And for those of you who say that you can't wear a red lip or you can't wear a bold lip because you just can't get it right, try it with a lip liner. So I'm just going to blot my lip balm off. Whenever I'm wearing a bold lip, I always like to prep my lips with a concealer. This is the Tower 28 Concealer, my Ride or Die Concealer. So then that cancels out any redness or discoloration on my lips, so then you're getting the true tone of whatever color I'm putting on top of it. So I have my Real Techniques brush right here, and I'm just going to go right over the lip line and kind of feather it in. This is the one time we actually want to cancel out everything that's going on on the lips, so then you get the true color of the lipstick. And it also creates a nice prepped canvas for the red lipstick to go on top of, which is super important. I'm going to take a little bit of the RCMA No Color Powder onto my powder puff. I'm going to press it in, just to set that concealer. Alright, lips are prepped, I'm just going to go straight in with the lipstick and follow my natural lip line. I'm actually trying to do this with the lipstick so it doesn't look like I'm intentionally trying to make it look bad. So not terrible, but if you look at it, it just doesn't look finished. It doesn't look refined. Yes, I have a red lip on, yes it makes my face pop, but it's lacking structure. And if you can see, let me close my lips. So you can see where my top lip is smaller than my lower lip, so we want to have a little bit more symmetry there. And the one side of my lip slopes down where this side goes out. So there's a lot of asymmetry there. That's where the lip liner comes in. Now in the same wavelength of the nude lip liners when I was talking about using two of them, depending on what kind of look you're going for, we're going to do the same thing with this red lip look. I have these two red lip liners, two of which I use on the regular whenever I do a red lip like this, especially when I use this Dior shade. And depending on what kind of look I'm going for, depends on whichever lip liner I'm using. Now this one from Sisley, this is Ruby from Sisley. This is pretty much an exact shade for the lipstick that I'm wearing right now. So this is great to fill in, create that beautiful shape, and give you that beautiful classic red lip. Now if we're talking about giving the lip a little bit of contour, a little bit more dimension, we're going to bring this one in right here. This is Cherry from MAC. As you can see, she's a little bit deeper and she's a little bit more blue undertone, so cool undertone. And what that does is it creates almost like a contour in the same family, the same shade around the perimeter of my lip and gives it more shape and gives it just a little bit more dimension. Now another thing that I like to do with my red lips and my bold lips is I put the lipstick on first. That helps me to map out what shape I want to create and where I need to overdraw or correct. It gives me kind of like a guideline, so to speak, if that makes any sense. So I'm going to take my Ruby lip liner. I have my lipstick already on, as you can see, and I'm just going to follow along. Now the top lip is a little tricky. I don't always get it right, but I always try to get it as right as I can. And I start in the same spot as I do for my nude lips, which is my Cupid's bow, and I always overdraw just to give a little bit of drama. So here and here, I create that kind of X, and then using the flat end of the liner, and then I'll go over it a little bit with the lipstick again. And I don't know if you can see, but I overdrew higher on this side than I did on this side to create as symmetrical of a shape as I possibly can. Obviously, nobody is perfect. I am not perfect. And here we have the classic red lip. Do you see how the lip liner just leveled it up? I'm telling you, once you start using a lip liner with your lipsticks, you won't ever go back. If you take that little bit of extra time, your efforts will totally be worth it. I promise. Now for the second red lip look, I have Cherry from MAC, like I showed you before. Sometimes what I like to do is I like to tilt my head up, so it gives me a better idea of how to line and make my lips more symmetrical, and then I can try and match them. And then I'm going to take the lipstick again and fill in, and I don't know if you can pick it up on camera. It's very subtle, but my lips do have a little bit more of a contour to them. This to me is my absolute, this is my favorite. I just love this so much. It's a red lip, but it's a 2025 red lip. And if you really want to amp up that contour, take your concealer brush with your concealer, grab a little, and go right under, and that'll sharpen that line. Now do you see why I will always wear lip liner when wearing lipstick? I swear, if this hasn't convinced you to at least wear a lip liner with your red lips, I don't know what will, because you remember that before and after, right? What a difference. What an impact lip liner can make, right? Just give it a try. Don't be afraid. You can always wipe makeup off and start over. That's the beauty of it. I definitely wiped this lipstick off quite a few times, trying to get it right, trying to make sure that I was showing you exactly what I wanted to show you. Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about what I talked about, specifically about cool tones versus warm tones, what I recommend for liners. If you're looking for more tips and tricks, please check out my playlist right here. Don't forget to hit the notification bell and subscribe for more makeup content from me. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next week with a brand new video.