Liquid lipstick

A liquid lipstick works by leaving something behind. It goes on as a fluid — pigment, a film-forming resin and oils, carried in a volatile solvent — and as the solvent evaporates the rest sets into a thin coat that grips the lips and resists transfer onto cups, clothes and other people. A patent for the approach describes exactly that: a resin in a volatile carrier, applied from a liquid applicator, drying to a thin but durable film that has to stay flexible enough to move with the lips.^[1]

That film is what separates it from its neighbours. A lip gloss never sets; a lip tint dyes the lips rather than covering them; a bullet lipstick stays soft, moves, and wears away gradually. A liquid lipstick is the most opaque and longest-wearing of them and the least forgiving: it shows every flake on the lips, and it tends to fail by cracking or wearing away at the centre of the mouth rather than by fading evenly.

Liquid lipsticks divide by how completely they set. Long-wear mattes dry to a firm, transfer-resistant film: the most durable, and the driest. Soft-matte formulas and lip creams set to a velvet that stays slightly flexible and a little transfer-prone, and feel lighter. If a full matte has cracked or tightened on you before, move one step along that line before giving up on the category.

Shade matters more than with a bullet, because a liquid is hard to sheer out: what is in the tube is roughly what you get. Swatch on a fingertip, which is closer in colour to the lips than the back of the hand, and let it dry before judging — most darken a little as they set.

Prepare the lips first. Buff away any flakes, apply a balm, and blot it off after a few minutes so the surface is smooth but not slick. Wipe the excess off the wand on the neck of the tube; one thin layer sets better than a heavy one. Outline with the tip of the applicator — the cupid’s bow first, then the corners — fill in from the centre, and keep the lips apart for a minute or two while it sets.

Add a second coat only when the first is completely dry, and only where it is needed; a wet layer over a half-dry one pills and flakes. A liner of the same shade under the whole lip gives the film something to hold and hides the edge as it wears. Touch up the centre rather than repainting the whole mouth, and take it off with an oil or balm pressed on and left for a moment, not by scrubbing.

Most complaints about liquid lipstick come down to four things. Cracking usually means too thick a layer, or a second coat laid on before the first had set: take it off and start again with one thin coat. Wearing away at the centre is the lips pressing together and the film giving way where they touch; top up only the middle, rather than adding a layer over the whole mouth. Tightness is the price of a film that does not move, and a soft-matte or lip-cream formula trades a little wear for comfort. And a liquid that pills into tiny rolls has usually been laid over balm that was never blotted.

Some wearers press a thin balm over the centre of the lips once the colour has set. It takes the edge off the dryness and costs some transfer resistance, but not the colour.

Liquid lip colour is older than the metal lipstick case. In the nineteenth century some women put liquid rouges such as Bloom of Roses — carmine dissolved in ammonia and rose water — on their lips as well as their cheeks.^[2] Those were stains. The first product sold as a liquid lipstick, as far as Cosmetics and Skin can find, was Princess Pat’s Liquid Liptone of 1938, and it did something new: it covered the lips with a coloured, water-resistant film.^[3] Its chemist, Milton Klimist of Chicago, filed the patent in January 1939 and was granted it in 1941: ethyl cellulose dissolved in alcohol, with a plasticiser to keep the film soft and a dye for colour, which he said would be smear-proof and could even reshape the lip line. It was applied with a small absorbent rod on a twisted wire.^[4]

It had faults a modern wearer would recognise: the alcohol could sting, it needed its own remover, and a bottle could spill in a handbag. Interest faded in the 1950s, when indelible sticks promised the same kiss-proof wear.^[3] The formula found a second life without its colour. From 1948 Liquid Liptone was also sold clear, to paint over a cream lipstick and seal it, beside Lip-Stae of 1947 and the British Lip-Cote of 1949, which Cosmetics and Skin records is still on sale.^[3] The liquids sold today, which began to appear in the late 1990s, are built differently, closer to a stick lipstick in formulation;^[3] a patent Procter & Gamble first applied for in 1995 describes the chemistry, a silicone resin in a volatile carrier that evaporates to leave a flexible, transfer-resistant film, with an optional clear “topcoat” over it — the sealer’s idea again.^[5] One launch shows how far the format had come by the mid-2010s: Kylie Jenner’s Lip Kit, a velvet-matte liquid lipstick sold with a matching liner in three nude and brown shades, sold out within ten minutes of its launch in November 2015, according to the trade press.^[6]