I love my liquid lipstick and not just any liquid lipstick, matte liquid lipstick. It's so versatile, can easily transform your entire look and goes so well with any glam look! What I don't love are my dry, chapped lips. But why should that not allow me to wear a good, matte lip, right?! 

Here's everything I do to allow me to perfect, prep and moisturize my lips for the ultimate liquid lip!

Exfoliating lips and moisturizing is key when wearing any lipstick, especially dark and bold shades. If you have dry lips, just wearing a traditional lip balm and calling it a day, unfortunately, isn't going to work. There's many different ways you can exfoliate, too. Here's a few of my DIY faves.

EXFOLIATING LIPS:

If I know I'm going to be wearing liquid lipstick, sometimes I'll go in with pure honey to exfoliate and moisturize. Honey is such a good ol' natural ingredient to keep in your cupboard and comes to use in so many DIYs like this one.

Apply honey all over your lips and leave it there for 15-30 minutes as a moisturizing lip mask. Then, gently massage the sugar crystals (which are only in the organic and purest forms of honey) to exfoliate the lips. Rinse away and finish with your fave lip balm or moisturizer.

If you're a fan of wearing lip masks or intensive lip moisturizers at night, then this next method is a great one for the next morning. After you brush your teeth, rinse the toothbrush and just gently rub the bristles across your lips for a bit of exfoliating action. Then, use your fingertips to firmly slough away any bit of dead skin cells from your lips. If you have dry lips like me, doing this everyday keeps annoying, chapped flakes at bay! Again, follow with lip balm or your fave moisturizer.

The next method is using sugar with your fave oil. This could be sweet almond oil, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, etc. Of course, you can combine multiple ingredients like Vitamin E Oil and such but this is the most basic scrub. You can even keep some in a small jar in your bathroom to use for later. Use the sugar scrub and gently massage your lips. Rinse away the excess and moisturize lips. I find this method to be least effective for my dry lips when they're extremely chapped but if you use this regularly along with the other methods, it should do the trick.

Hopefully, that gave you some options on how you can effectively exfoliate your lips at home. Now, let's get into lip moisturizer which is also very important!

LIP MOISTURIZER:

For dry, chapped lips, using a heavy duty moisturizer is absolutely crucial. In fact, wearing it every night before bedtime is even better. I love natural moisturizers like lanolin and Vitamin E and they make for the perfect lip sleeping mask. In the morning, your lips will be so lush! Sometimes I'll even layer both the lanolin and Vitamin E together.

I also love using some of my skincare products on other parts of my body, like hands, neck and lips. A bit of hyaluronic acid helps smooth out and plump up the lips, keeping them nice and moisturized. Then, I like to use a face oil like coconut oil, sweet almond oil, rosehip seed oil, etc. which all work perfectly fine to moisturize lips. I find these natural ingredients work best for extra dry lips. For me, it's all about layering and customizing what I need for that day. Sometimes I'll apply one product, other days, I'll apply two or even three for super intensive care for my lips.

You can even apply a lip mask (like the ones mentioned, above) before you start your makeup routine and by the time you're done with your full face and are ready for lips, just make sure to completely wipe off before applying the lipstick. Simply remove with a soft tissue and then you can even use a warm washcloth to gently rub the rest off and this even helps exfoliate the lips so they're super soft and ready for liquid lipstick!

There you have it, some tips to prep, exfoliate and moisturize lips so you're ready for  any liquid lip or lip art! Stay tuned for my top liquid lipsticks post, coming up next.

XOXO, Mandy