Neutral Lips Are The New Nude Lip

The Neutral Lip

I don’t remember where I first heard the phrase ‘neutral lips’ but that person deserves all the credit.  Neutral lips is a concept that I have been loving and I have found the perfect products to perfect the look.  You don’t need to buy new products (necessarily) you just need to combine products and shades that retain the dimension that your lips naturally have.

Patent Purple Life Neutral Lip

Nude vs Neutral

For me, a nude lip is the concealer lip.  You may be more familiar with it as the foundation lip.  The lip where you look like you are trying to blot out your natural lip colour. A nude lip in my opinion looks like you are wearing lipstick. The beuaty industry still does not really understand that ‘nude’ comes in more than 4 shades.  In addition, my lips are not one colour.  Nor are they caramel brown with a peach or pink undertone.

The other thing about a nude lip is that it does not necessarily go with every makeup look.  If you have a pastey sixties-esque lip colour you need a ‘made up’ face to balance it out.   A neutral lip by contrast is … well…neutral.  It is like an amped up ‘lip balm’ look.   You can literally wear it with every look, be it matte, shimmery, no make up or full on drag-esque cake face.  You don’t need to spend a huge amount of time on a neutral lip yet it looks polished every time you apply it.  The neutral lip is the grown up version of the nude lip.  I am absolutely loving the freedom that this lip look gives me.  I know that I don’t have to spend ages in the mirror perfecting it.

The Products

I use two of the Iman Lip Pencils either in  Espresso, a warm mid brown shade and Cocoa a cool deep brown.  Both are perfect shade for a neutral lip.  If you have pigmented lips which are not the same colour you need to find yourself some good lip liners.  I like to have a cool and a warm tone depending on the look I am creating and whether I want a super defined look (cocoa) or a more even spread of colour across the lips (Espresso).  The texture of these pencils is very smooth, they don’t drag the skin and they are very blendable.  Forget MAC Chestnut head to Iman for deep and dark brown lip shades.

Neutral lips Iman Lip Pencils

I am not a lip gloss girl but the Marc Jacobs Enamoured Hi Shine Gloss Lip Lacquer in Love Drunk is my colour.  It is pigmented but not too pigmented. It has some gold shimmer but it is not a shimmer product.  It has a mauve undertone but it is not overtly plum.  It is the perfect blend of all my favourite things in a lip gloss… in a formula that is not too sticky and is long lasting on the lips.

The Neutral Lip

In combination, this is the perfect neutral lip.  I can go heavy on the liner, or heavy on the gloss – no matter what I do this lip just looks good.  Moisturised, nourished, polished, and the perfect back drop to any and every look that I do.  I can’t get enough of this combination.

Neutral Lips Swatches Iman Espresso and Cocoa Lip Pencils and Marc Jacobs Love Drunk Lip Lacquer

Why Not Just Wear A Balm?

As a makeup addict, a lip balm of course has it’s place in my bathroom but I normally wear it on bare face days and before bed.  A neutral lip is polished, it finishes off the look and it provides more dimension than a balm.  If you are a devotee of the nude lip, a neutral lip gives you more more options and just as elegant a look.

Have I convinced you?  Are you going to step away from a two dimensional nude lip and step into the three dimensional realm of the neutral lip?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers:

%d bloggers like this: