Your Guide to What Is My Lip Shape

Author

Dr. Stephen Cosentino

If you’re reading this, you’ve asked yourself: “What is my lip shape?” And you’ve yet to reach a satisfactory answer.

You’ve come to the right place. There are many different types of lips, and knowing which category yours falls into is key if you want to put your best foot (or lip) forward. Let’s review the most common lip shapes, along with some less common ones, and learn how to accentuate each.

Popular Lip Shapes — How to Accentuate Each

Here’s how to make your already beautiful lips look even better.

Full lips: Full lips are equally plump on the top and bottom. If you’re fine with that, a clear lip gloss or balm is all you need. Otherwise, use lip stain or liner to “extend” the lip you want to highlight.

Round lips: This lip type is proportional but tends to have a “vertical” look that can make the mouth look small in comparison to other facial features. To counteract this, apply lipstick all over the lips while shading out the corners of your mouth a bit to create a more horizontal appearance.

Top heavy lips: For heavy upper lips, use a lighter shade of lipstick near the border of your top lip and a darker shade on your entire bottom lip, extending over your vermilion border (the boundary between your lip and skin).

Bottom heavy lips: For heavy bottom lips, do the reverse: a darker lip color on the top vermilion border and a lighter shade on the lower lip.

Wide lips: Your lips are already a prominent facial feature, so they don’t need a lot of extra work. Use a clear lip balm or lip gloss that literally helps them shine without adding volume.

Thin lips: A specially formulated hyaluronic acid lip filler can increase your lip volume. Just be sure to work with a cosmetic medicine provider who has completed advanced lip filler training.

Bow shaped lips: Make your bow shaped lips appear fuller with a darker stain or lipstick that accentuates your natural lip line.

Heart shaped lips: As with round lips, the top tip for heart shaped lips — if you don’t like their verticality — is to use a darker lipstick or liner to “extend” them horizontally.

Downturned lips: Downturned lips are longer than they are full and can make you look permanently annoyed. Use lip liners to achieve a plump, full-lipped look that says, “I’m fine, really.”

How to Find Your Lip Shape

You know what your lips look like, but how well can you describe them? To correctly identify your lip shape, do the following:

Stand in front of a large, well-lit vanity mirror
Relax and close your mouth
Measure the distance between the bottom of your lower lip (in the lowest part, usually the very center of your lips) and where your upper and lower lips meet
Do the same with your upper lip
Measure the distance between the two philtral ridges (the vertical ridges between your nose and the top of your upper lip)
Visually assess the overall volume of your upper lip and lower lip

This isn’t a scientific exercise and doesn’t produce perfect results. But it should give you enough information to figure out which of these lip shape categories yours belong in.