Lip Care in Cold Weather

It is all too easy to let your lips get dry and cracked when the weather is cold.  Walking to the shops against a bitter wind, waiting on a draughty railway station, coping with a warm office and then a cold bus stop – all take their toll.

The sad part is that your lips can become chapped in only a day or two but take weeks to heal.  Prevention is better than cure!

I try to wear lipstick all the time. (This can be difficult if you are male.)  Even so, sometimes it wears off.  So, I keep a little tube of lip balm in my handbag.  I am currently using Kiehl’s Lip Balm; I bought this one in July.  It cost £9 (from SpaceNK) but it has lasted me a long time.

I prefer a lip balm that comes in a tube because it is easy to dab on over lipstick without making a mess, and also because it seems more hygienic.

However, a basic product, such as Boots Essential Lip Salve costs much less (£1.01 for the Boots product shown).

How to apply perfect lipstick

We will begin with a confession: we don’t do this every day.  Most days we just slick on some lippie as we leave the house.

There are occasions when you want to look your best, and part of that process should include the application of perfect lipstick.

Begin by cover your lips with your make up foundation.  This may make you look as if you have just been dug up; the point of doing this is to allow the lipstick to show its true colour without your lip colour changing the tone.  You don’t need to apply masses of foundation, just enough to take away your natural lip colour.

Use a lip pencil to outline your lips.  This will help you to achieve a neater edge, and should prevent the lipstick from feathering out. 

If your lip pencil has a soft consistency, gently blot your lips using a folded tissue.  Otherwise, move straight to the next step, which is to apply lipstick using a lip brush.

It takes about a minute longer to use a lip brush, but you will get better coverage and your lipstick will stay in place for a longer time.

First use the lip brush to paint over the pencil line, and then fill in the colour using tiny brush strokes from the outer edge towards your mouth.

When you have filled in the entire colour, gently blot using a paper tissue.  If you feel you have been too generous with the lipstick, open your mouth wide and put your index finger between your lips.  Then close your mouth and slowly withdraw your finger.  This will mop up any excess lipstick, and save you from getting lipstick on your teeth.

For a glossy finish, apply just a dab of lip-gloss to the middle of your bottom lip.

Plum toned lipsticks are in style this autumn, and this colour range looks good with most skin tones.  At the time of writing, the best seller from Lookfantastic is Bare Escentuals Bareminerals 100% Natural Lip Colour in Plum Brulee.  It costs £10.40 from the Lookfantastic website.

Sheer Lipstick or Lipgloss for a Summer Look

We may be in the last month of ‘official’ summer, especially for those who are bound by school holidays.  The good weather may last several more weeks; some people have the luxury of taking an autumn holiday in the sun.

It seems to us that if one is taking a holiday in the sun, then one wants a ‘summer look’ in the line of makeup.  To us, a summer look face has minimal make up, and sheer lipstick or lip gloss.

In early August we went on a lipstick shopping expedition to a nearby town.  It must be said that our nearby town does not boast a SpaceNK, or even a MAC shop.  There are only two shops that offer a choice of ‘big name’ make up, and these being Boots and Debenhams.

We thought that there would be a wide choice of sheer lipstick or lip gloss, and that most of the cosmetic companies would offer at least one lipstick with built in Sun Protection Factor (SPF).

There was a very wide choice of lip gloss, with Lancôme probably having the loveliest colours.  In our opinion Dior was a close second in the lip gloss beauty competition.  There were few lip glosses with Sun Protection Factor.  Clinique has a lip gloss with SPF 15, which is the highest level we could find.  Clarins currently has a product called ‘Click and Gloss’ with SPF 6.  It costs £15 and is available in a limited range of colours, but these were exactly the subtle shades we had in mind for a summer look.

When it came to lipstick all the cosmetic counters were displaying their autumn collections.  The weather on the day of our shopping expedition was very warm and humid, and we certainly did not feel ready for autumn make up.

Clinique had the best choice of lipsticks that in our opinion provided a summer look.  They had both lipstick and lip gloss with SPF 15.  Their ‘High Impact Lip Colour’ provides medium rather than sheer colour, but some of the more nude to natural shades would be just right. The price is £14.50.  We also liked their ‘Almost Lipstick’, which provides a sheer tint (picture of product at top of page).

The Clinique lip range includes a lip gloss that seems the perfect product for bridging the time between now and the end of autumn.  It’s called ‘Vitamin C Lip Smoothie Anti-oxidant Lip Colour’ (doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue) and costs £13.50.  The colours available are billed as autumn shades, but the product is so light that it seems right for summer.

If you are looking for something in a lower price range, try The Body Shop.  Their Colourglide lipstick comes in some delightful colours, sadly with no SPF, but the attractive price tag of £8.00.

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