Loving My Big Beautiful Lips / My Favourite Lip Glosses For Dark Skin Girls
Where My Lippie Obsession Came From
It’s funny how phrases and questions like “your lips are way too big”, “your lips are ugly, ugh!”, “I don’t think your lips should be that thick,” “Did your lips just swallow your face?”, can be combated with the one phrase “you have big beautiful lips” from a parent. Yes, all I heard in elementary (primary) and high school and without saying a word of it to my dad he would always say, you have big beautiful lips. Message to parents, positive affirmations to your children are important!!!
Growing up in a country (Jamaica) where colourism is very real and blatant, I was taught by society to hate my features and skin tone. From the thickness and fullness of my lips to the kinks in my hair and the deep tone of my skin, I was taught by my peers and their parents and even the older generations that this is not what beauty looked like.
However, when the world/society fed me that garbage, I would always come home to the teachings of my parents. My father taught me to love and appreciate my physical beauty and attributes and my mother always encouraged and instilled in me that no matter how beautiful I am on the outside I was a smart girl and that’s what counts.
It’s strange how I used both their teachings and encouragements to feed myself positivity and to face the world with a confident and fighting spirit.
Cracked Split Bleeding Lips Are Not Cute Or Fun To Deal With
I noticed from a pretty early age that my lips would always get dry, cracked, flaky and would oftentimes bleed from the cracks (this was ugly and painful). Growing up there was no such thing as lip balm, there were vaseline and Dax, (yes Dax on my lips) that’s it!!!
My father would paste my lips with vaseline to soothe them, heal the splits in my lips making them feel soft and smooth, I really loved soft smooth shiny lips.
Little did I know that this is where my obsession with glossy lips would start.
While Everyone Was Teasing, I Was Appreciating
As mentioned earlier, I got teased in high school about my lips, but for some odd reason, I couldn’t seem to hate my lips, I loved them even more. If you can remember in my blog post The Challenge Of Finding The Right Foundation For My Dark Skin where I went on the search for makeup to match my skin tone. During this time I also hunted for lip glosses that would best fit my dark skin.
Current Faves
Here are a few lip glosses that I am currently loving
Nude & Cute, these are the perfect clear lip glosses for dark skin girls. With just a hint of pink hue, this gives my dark complexion the perfect pop and sheen for my lips.
I start with lining my lips with a cherry lip liner, then I go in with Sephora’s Marshmallow N19 directly to my lips. This pink tone lip gloss compliments my dark skin very well.
Second, on top of Marshmallow N19, we are going in with our NYX Lingerie Gloss in Euro Trash LLG08. This is slightly mauvish in colour and blends well into my dark complexion.
I use this over Marshmallow N19 because I think the pigments blend well to give my dark skin a cool-toned nude look. The NYX Lingerie Gloss in Euro Trash LLG08 is a pigmented lightweight lip gloss that is not as sticky, however, glides smoothly on the lips for a beautiful finish.
Lastly, I go in with Sephora’s Crystal N7 over top of Marshmallow N19, and NYX Lingerie Gloss in Euro Trash as the last coat on my lips. The lip gloss Crystal N7 from the Sephora brand is very sheer, very neutral and fits perfectly as a finishing gloss over any colour.
Sephora’s Crystal N7 is a soft sheer pink gloss that can be worn beautifully on its own. I really love the consistency of the Sephora brand lip glosses, they are smooth to the touch and slightly sticky on the lips perfect for the finishing touch.
Dark Skin Loves Red
As a dark skin girl, I have come to realize that my skin tone loves wine red lip colours, sadly I found this out when I was 26 years old. I guess I was not comfortable enough with wearing bold lip colours because of my religious background, so there was always a hesitation to really wear a bold colour on my lips.
So here I was, age 26 and trying the colour “black cherry” for the first time and... I was shocked at how the colour melted in my skin. It was like the colour was saying “hello darling, where have you been”?
Ever since then I also noticed that plums, browns and other earth tone lip colours suit my complexion very well. I absolutely love Sephora’s Glossed Lip Gloss Collection In Black Cherry Looks amazing on me and feels soft and smooth on my lips. I am loving this dark coloured tone on my lips for real.
This is probably one of my faves of all time. I lined it with Sephora’s Lip Liner to go in Deep Brown. For me, this is perfect for both a daytime look as well as a nighttime look, I don’t think I could go wrong with this.
I should also mention that while I do have a lippie obsession I do save for my spending. I try as much as possible and as best as possible to save for my non essential items. As for my essential spending we do budget for that as well (this well be in a future blog so stay tuned for that).
Message To Black Girls
Black Girls/Women, you are beautiful!Your complexion is beautiful!
Your lips are beautiful!
Your curves are beautiful!
Your hair is beautiful!
Your smile is beautiful!
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!
Love every bit of who you are and let no human being tell you otherwise.
RTJ
