Try This: Create New Lip Colors

I know super huge, macro lip shots freak some people out, but I think it's worth it if it can save us some money. Obviously, lipstick is my weakness, and when I see a blogger wearing an incredible new shade or a makeup artist showcasing a formula with a unique finish, I want to rush out and buy another tube pronto. But the truth of the matter is that I don't have a ton of money to buy new products, and I don't really need them, anyway. When I look at my collection of over a dozen lipsticks, assorted balms, and various pencils, I realize I can make most colors with a bit of mixing.

Take this first lip as an example. Lisa Eldridge did a video showcasing a variety of bright-but-not-stark lip looks, and I was weirdly attracted to this sort of "popsicle"variation. (I say "weirdly" not because it's an odd look, but because glossy isn't usually my style.) I stopped myself from buying a new Korean lipstick and tried mixing shades instead. I used Portrait Peach for the overall color and some Fenty Freckle Fiesta for a bit more depth, and I layered Fresh Sugar Caramel Lip Balm under and over to create that more sheer, shiny finish. Boom: no new lipstick required!

Pencils are also an excellent mixing tool. Using them just around the edges of your mouth is a great way to get a clean shape, create depth, and prevent feathering, but it can also alter the shade of the lipstick on top. Rodin So Mod is a bit too milky and pastel for me to wear on its own, so I always use a dash of NYX Nude Pink around the edges to keep my mouth from disappearing. If you cover your entire lips in the darker, more peach liner, then So Mod becomes a less pastel, but still milky and mod-ish shade. I love this look so much, I've finally decided to let go of MAC Faux lipstick. (It's in the same color family, just more purple and muted, which isn't as flattering on my skintone.)

Granted, this only works if you have a small collection of lip products to begin with. If you only own a couple of lipsticks or a single pencil, your options might be more limited. Yet with one gloss, six pencils, and sixteen lipsticks, my collection is not huge by blogger standards, and I can still come up with a range of new colors. Even if you only have two lip products, it's worth smearing them together to see what you can get.

Also, a word of advice on matte liquid lipsticks: you can still blend most of them. You'll just have to move quicker. Some people do one color on their top lip and another on their bottom, then rub their lips together, but I find that a lot of modern liqui-mattes dry too quickly for this, and it can mess up the lip line. You can try dabbing a bit of each shade on the back of your hand, then blending them together and applying them with a lip brush for precision.