9 Different Types of Lip Shape + How To Find Yours

When lips are large and wide set, they are known as full lips. Full lips are the biggest and most prominent lip shape you can have. They tend to have a plump, pouty appearance and are equally full on the top and bottom.

If you have naturally full lips, you can accentuate their fullness by lining your natural lip shape with a darker shade of lip liner, then applying a lighter shade of lipstick to the centre of your lips and blotting it out with your ring finger. Even though full lips are naturally voluptuous, you can still overline them to exaggerate their appearance further; just take your lip liner slightly outside the line of your lips for an even fuller-looking effect.

Unlike round lips, wide lips are characterised by the contrast between their length and width. Look at the distance between the corners of your mouth, then compare it to the distance between the tip of your Cupid’s bow and the underside of your bottom lip – if your lips are significantly wider, this is called having wide lips.

If you want to create a more balanced, full lip shape, take your Lip Cheat lip liner and softly overline your Cupid’s bow and bottom lip, focusing on the centre to create a fuller-looking pout.

The smallest lip shape of them all is thin lips. Thin lips are characterised by slim top and bottom lips that are much less apparent on the face, sometimes with a less-defined lip line.

It can be challenging to apply lipstick onto thin lips as there is less surface area for your lipstick to swipe onto. I recommend using my Lip Brush to apply your favourite shade of lipstick – it’s a square-tipped brush that allows for a more precise application. If you want your thin lips to look bigger, reach for my Lip Cheat to overdraw them, skimming slightly outside the natural line of your lips with lip liner will help to cheat the appearance of fuller, wider-looking lips!

Downturned lips are characterised by a slanted appearance at the corners of the mouth. A downturned lip shape can be genetic but can also sometimes be a result of overactive facial movements such as frowning. This lip shape also becomes more prevalent with age as the skin naturally loses its elasticity and begins to droop.

You can give downturned lips a lift effect using concealer, darlings. Take Charlotte’s Beautiful Skin Radiant Concealer and swipe in diagonal, upward motions at the corners of the mouth – this will help to lift and brighten the look of your face. Use my Hollywood Complexion Brush to blend out your concealer, then apply lip liner and lipstick.

Tilbury Tip: Make sure your lip liner angles upwards at the corners of your bottom lip to create a lifted-looking lip shape. You can achieve this by stopping your lip liner before you reach the true corner of your mouth to create the illusion of a lip lift.

The defining feature of heart-shaped lips is a prominent V-shaped Cupid’s bow that resembles the cushiony tip of a love heart. Heart-shaped lips look naturally pursed and often are fuller than they are wide.

When applying lipstick to heart-shaped lips, be careful not to blur your heart-shaped lip line with a messy application. I suggest using a lip liner to follow the natural, sweetheart shape of your upper lip, then gliding on your lipstick to complete your love-heart lip look.

Bow-shaped lips take their name from Cupid’s bow and arrow. When the top lip resembles an archer’s bow with a delicate, U-shaped ridge in the centre, it is referred to as bow shaped. Bow-shaped lips are generally fuller in the middle than they are at the sides and are coveted for their defined-looking Cupid’s bow.

Darlings, bow-shaped lips are one of the rarest lip shapes you can have! Always embrace your nature-blessed lip shape, using lip liner and lipstick to enhance your natural lip line. If you’d like to make your bow-shaped lips look fuller, try softly overlining at the outer corners with my Lip Cheat to help them appear less narrow.

To decide whether you have round lips, think of a perfect circle. If your lips are an equal distance apart both sideways and lengthways and create an ‘O’ shape then you are likely to have round lips. Round lips can be smaller or larger but will always have a full, circular look to them that makes them unique.

Round lips have a distinctive shape but can sometimes lack dimension, so you can use makeup to cheat this, darling! When applying lip liner and lipstick to round lips, use a darker shade of lip liner in the corners of the mouth to softly contour the look of your lips. Another way to give your round lips a more dimensional look is to create a more exaggerated-looking Cupid’s bow that helps to add definition to their naturally rounded appearance.

It’s very common for your top or bottom lip to be fuller than the other, darlings. If your upper lip is slightly fuller than your lower lip, this is called having a heavy upper lip. A fuller upper lip is more prominent on the face, with the centre and Cupid’s bow being the fullest portion of the lips.

If your lips are top-heavy, I recommend using my Lip Cheat lip liner to accentuate the shape of your Cupid’s bow. Then, if you would like to achieve a more balanced lip shape, slightly overdraw your bottom lip to create a fuller-looking shape while being careful not to transfer any lip product onto your chin.

Conversely to the fuller upper lip shape, you can also have a fuller lower lip shape. Having a fuller lower lip means that your bottom lip looks larger than your top lip. A fuller lower lip often has a pouty appearance while the top lip is thinner and less prominent.

A heavy lower lip looks fabulous with a slick of mirror-shine lip gloss like my Collagen Lip Bath! If you want to achieve a more balanced lip look, I suggest slightly overlining your upper lip with my Lip Cheat lip liner to define the look of your Cupid’s bow and create greater symmetry between your top and bottom lip.

Darlings, if you are blessed with naturally full lips, applying lip liner will be a breeze. All you have to do is follow the naturally shape of your lips with a flattering shade of lip liner for your skin tone. Staying true to your natural lip shape will add definition to your lips, but you can also overline for lips to make them appear even juicier. With the SCULPT shade from my Lip Cheat Contour Duo, glide lip liner just beyond the natural line of your lips to subtly overdraw their shape to unlock a plumper and poutier lip look for full lips.

Wide lips already have a larger, well-defined shape, so I like to accentuate their fullness with lip liner. Overlining the Cupid’s bow and the bottom lip will help to create the illusion of bigger, rounder lips. Take the SCULPT shade from my Lip Cheat Contour Duo slightly above your natural Cupid’s bow to give your top lip some extra volume, then glide just outside the bottom lip for a plumper-looking pout. You can also use a lighter shade to fill in the centre of your lips – this will act as a light-catching highlight that helps wide lips to look and fuller.

If you have thin or narrow lips, you can use lip liner to create a fuller and wider looking lip shape. Thin lips are a perfect candidate for overlining and the results can be phenomenal! To overline thin lips, take the SCULPT shade from my Lip Cheat Contour Duo and draw a defined line slightly above your natural lip line – you can overdraw your entire lip to supersize the look of thin lips, or softly overline in the centre for a more natural-looking effect.

A lip liner trick for downturned lips is to stop your lip line just short of the natural end of your lip. Downturned lips can pull your face downwards, so creating a defined shape the stops slightly higher than the end of your lips can create a lifting effect. For your bottom lip, glide the SCULPT shade along the outer edge of your lip to accentuate its fullness. If you want a more pronounced lift effect, reach for a light shade of concealer and swish upwards from the outer corners of your bottom lip towards your ears – this light trick will help downturned lips to look more upturned.

To apply lip liner to heart-shaped lips, sketch a soft heart shape around the outside of your lips that accentuates the curvatures of your Cupid’s bow and bottom lip. If you want to soften the pointed aspects of heart-shaped lips, take the SCULPT shade from my Lip Cheat Contour Duo and fill in the V of your Cupid’s bow to create a crescent shape. To make heart-shaped lips appear wider, try shading n and softly overlining the outer corners of your lips for an elongating effect.

Bow-shaped lips have a distinctive, bow-shaped Cupid’s bow. I’m all for embracing your natural features, darlings, so when lining bow-shaped lips I love to follow the natural contours that give lips their beautiful bow quality. Bow-shaped lips have a soft V shape at the Cupid’s bow which I recommend using as a guide; start in the centre and either follow the natural line of your lips or overextend for a subtle, overdrawn lip shape.

Round lips look naturally full and plump, however they can look less defined due to the softness of their contours. To create a more sculpted-looking lip shape, use the SCULPT shade of my Lip Cheat Contour Duo to line the outer corners of your round lips – this will establish a more sculptural shape and will make lips look wider. Round lips also tend to have a rounder Cupid’s bow; if you prefer a more defined lip look, you can use lip liner to sketch out a sharper, heart-shaped Cupid’s bow and use a hint of concealer on your top lip to create that defined-looking V shape.

If your upper lip is fuller than your bottom lip, I would suggest using lip liner to cheat the look of a fuller and plumper bottom lip. With the SCULPT shade from my Lip Cheat Contour Duo, shade outside of the natural line of your bottom lip to sketch out a plumper, poutier shape. To ensure the shape you create looks natural and doesn’t transfer onto your chin, take care not to stray too far from your lips and give your lip liner plenty of time to set down. Since your top lip is naturally fuller, I would recommend using lip liner to define its natural shape rather than overdrawing – this will help to create a more balanced look.

Tilbury Tip: Another way to make your bottom lip look fuller is by adding a lip gloss like Big Lip Plumpgasm in Nudegasm Diamonds. This plumping lip gloss uses Heat and Ice Technology to give lips a supersizing plump effect and a diamond-gloss finish that makes lips look bigger instantly.

When your bottom lip is fuller than your top lip, your lips tend to look particularly pouty on the bottom but lack definition on the top. With lip liner, you can overdraw your top lip to give it a fuller and plumper looking lip shape that makes your pout look less bottom-heavy. Use the SCULPT shade from my Lip Cheat Contour Duo to shade slightly beyond the natural line of your top lip to create the illusion of a fuller top lip, then skim around the natural shape of your bottom lip to make sure lips look balanced and perfectly shaped. Instead of filling in your whole bottom lip with a lighter shade of lipstick, try blotting a minimal amount just in the centre – this will accentuate your lip shape without emphasising how much fuller your bottom lip is than your top lip.