Some days it seems like you barely have enough time in your schedule to shower before class, let alone put together the perfect look. But amazingly, Northwestern is filled with students who manage to look flawless — even with five midterms a week and a thousand extracurriculars. Each week, I’ll talk to someone on campus and get her makeup tips and tricks. This week, I talked to SESP sophomore Lya Ferreyra, who talked about lip care and makeup.

When doing your makeup, sometimes the lips can be overlooked with a last minute gloss touch-up or a quick swipe of color, but in all honesty, healthy lips with tasteful makeup can give you a high-definition look. So pucker up for some of Ferreyra’s tips on how to up your lip action.

Why love your lipstick?

For Ferreyra, lip color is a form of expression that helps show her feeling for that day or night. For example, when she is in a somber mood like during midterm season, she is likely to be wearing a darker color, yet she has a hot pink color ready to wear when she’s excited to go out.

Lya’s Tip: “(Lipstick) is almost like one of those mood rings you used to have but for your lips.”

Prep time

Maintaining your lips regularly will give you a great base when applying lip color. After all, lipstick on chapped lips is not an appealing combo.

Before applying lipstick, Ferreyra will put on lip balm and allow time for the balm to sink in. She explains that if you apply balm and then immediately put on lipstick the color will just slide off.

She says also using a lip scrub is a great way to get rid of the extra dead skin that flakes on your lips.

Lya’s Tip: “You can make (a lip scrub) out of sugar and honey. Especially in the winter months when (your lips) get chapped, you can just mix a bit of sugar with honey in a bowl and just kind of clump it and then rub it on your lips to get rid of the dead skin and make your lips really soft.”

Coloring between the lines

After the balm, Ferreyra will use lip liner to trace and define the outer edges of her lips. She then will fill in her lips with the liner and apply the lipstick on top of the liner. Ferreyra uses the liner to prevent her lipstick color from bleeding around the edges.

Lya’s Tip: “If you want to get sharp lines around your lips you can use a little bit of concealer and put it around (the edges) to make your lips pop a little more.” (Use a flat edge concealer brush for this tip.)

When choosing lip liner, Ferreyra says you can mix and match between liner and lipstick, but keep in mind that the “liner will shine though the lipstick.” Hence, the darker the lip liner, the darker the color of your lipstick.

Also, Ferreyra recommends using a white eye-pencil to fill in the center and top of your lips to make them look bigger.

Lya’s Tip: “If you have a darker lip liner than your lipstick, what you can do is fill in the edges of your mouth with it and leave the rest (of your lips) blank and then put the lipstick over it. This creates a shadow that makes your lips look fuller.”

Love your color

Finding a color that fits your complexion can make your look go from Halloween vampire scary to alluring.

When picking a color, Ferreyra makes sure to test the color on her wrist and look for colors that complement her skin tone.

Lya’s Tip: “So if you have lighter skin you’re going to look for something that has more bluish tones; whereas, if you have more of an olive complexion you’re going to look for things that have more red tones in them.”

 Know someone with a great makeup look or have your own tips to share? Email me at [email protected].