Lip crayon

A lip crayon sits between a lipstick and a liner and borrows from both. Its core is lipstick colour — most often matte or soft-matte, sometimes satin — in the thick body of a jumbo pencil. The edge of its tip draws the outline of the mouth; the flat of it fills the lips in. Most wind up out of a plastic barrel and need little sharpening; others are jumbo pencils in wood or plastic, sharpened like a liner.

The casing changes the formula. A bullet lipstick has to be firm enough to stand up on its own, but a crayon is supported along its whole length, so it can be softer. Cosmetic chemists quoted by Allure add that wood-cased crayons tend to carry creamier, less transfer-proof formulas, because porous wood does not suit the fast-drying ingredients of long-wear mattes, while plastic-cased crayons, sharpened or twist-up, can carry either.^[1]

Finish decides most of it. A matte crayon gives the strongest colour and the longest wear, and the most dryness; a soft-matte or velvet one blurs its edge a little and is kinder to dry lips; a satin crayon trades some staying power for comfort and a slight sheen. Sheer, balm-like crayons are closer to a tinted balm than to a lipstick, and suit lips that should look like lips.

Shade is easier to judge than with a liquid, because a crayon can be worn lightly. A colour a little too bright can be pressed on with a fingertip rather than drawn; one a little too dark can be worn only at the centre of the lips and blended out.

Then decide between twist-up and sharpened. A twist-up is simpler to carry and leaves no shavings in a bag. A sharpened jumbo pencil can be brought to a finer point for drawing, but it needs a sharpener with a wide enough opening; the ordinary liner size will not take it.

Start with lips that are smooth but not slick. Draw the outline first with the edge of the tip — the cupid’s bow, the centre of the lower lip, out to each corner — then fill with the flat of it, following the curve of the lips. For a softer, stained look, dab colour on the centre of the lips, press them together, and blend outward with a fingertip.

Because the edge and the centre are the same product, there is no liner to match and no line left showing as it wears. To make it last, blot with a tissue after the first layer and apply a second. Wipe the tip after use and cap it straight away: a soft core picks up lint and dries at the point.

If you are new to crayons, start with one a shade or two deeper than your own lips. It is the easiest to wear without a mirror, because a slightly uneven edge disappears into the lips’ own colour rather than showing as a line.

A jumbo pencil needs a jumbo sharpener: most houses that make one sell a sharpener with a wide opening to match. Chill a soft crayon for ten minutes before sharpening it, and turn it gently, because a creamy core breaks under a hard twist. Twist-ups need no sharpener, though some carry a small one to restore the edge; take off as little as you can. Keep crayons capped and away from heat — softer than a bullet, a warm crayon bends in its barrel. If the tip has dried and drags, rub it on the back of the hand, or take a thin shaving off with the sharpener, until it glides again.

Lipstick has been sold in pencil shapes for most of a century, though rarely for long. Thicker sticks came first, and for money rather than fashion: American makers introduced “Jumbo” and then “Super Jumbo” lipsticks in the 1930s, apparently to improve their margins during the Depression. After the Second World War came long, slim lipsticks — pencil types — sold as lip liners, among them Revlon’s Lip-Fashion of 1947 and Max Factor’s Fine Line of 1962; Cosmetics and Skin records that the first wave had little success.^[2] The crayon as an idea came from the art shop. Mary Quant, whose cosmetics were launched on 28 March 1966, said she had experimented with artists’ materials — paint brushes, water-colour paint boxes and crayons — and the Victoria and Albert Museum notes how that foreshadowed later products and their names.^[3]

The chubby twist-up crayon of today is recent, and even its best-known example has a disputed date. Clinique’s Chubby Stick Moisturizing Lip Colour Balm, a sheer colour in what the launch material called a “crayon-esque barrel”, was announced for January 2011;^[4] coverage of the range’s relaunch in 2026, made with the crayon maker Crayola as a partner, dates the Chubby Sticks to 1997, or to “almost 30 years ago”.^[5][6] Neither date makes Clinique the first to put lip colour in a crayon, and we have found no reliable record of who was. What the format has become since is plainer: lipstick and liner carried in one piece, at every price from the drugstore to the prestige counter.