Gradient Lips Trend: All the rage in Korea!

I first heard about this trend two years ago when I was working retail with this girl who had taught English in South Korea for a year.  This is a common thing people with a undergrad degree in the Arts do, but then most of them come back to North America somewhat jaded with job prospects and life in general.  Anyways, so we worked together and she often complained about how ridiculous the make-up trends were there.  The “gradient lip” trend was her favourite one to dis-credit.  She said she hated the look of it, but I think she just hated cute ideas in general!  But I digress.  Basically, the trend involves painting your whole lips nude, then, just in the center, placing red so it looks as if you ate some ripe red fruit, and it had stained just the inner part of the lips.  The motivation behind this trend is that it is supposed to look cuter and younger.  So let’s put this to the test on me!

You need two lip colours to do this. Make sure they contrast each other enough. The main point of this trend is nude coloured lips, with a gradient dab of bright colour in the center.

Come close for a kiss! ha ha. This is how it looked on me. I don’t know if you can see it. But it is indeed two toned, with the red in the center, fading out to nudey pink on the edges. Like?

How I find this look:

I can see why it might be a trend in Korea.  There is something very natural about this red in the center lip…because that is where lips tend to be redder anyhow.  When I showed this lip trend to my kid, he couldn’t tell I was wearing lipcolour!  Another thing I like about this trend is that it’s an easy way to wear a bright red lip colour without looking like you’re screaming “look at my lips”!  It is more subtle.  And that’s why I like it. 🙂  My tips for getting a more defined gradient is to do the center part bright red first, then outline it with the nude lip colour to blend and smudge it.  What do you think about it?