Growing up, you probably remember watching your mom outline her lips with a pencil before colouring in with her favourite lipstick. Nineties makeup was all about the lip liner: the razor-sharp, darker-than-your-lipstick outline that supermodels like Naomi Campbell turned into a signature. And then, like so many trends of that era—skinny brows, frosted lids, et al—it disappeared into the beauty abyss. Never in my adult life have I been tempted to go out and buy a lip pencil. Until now.
Suddenly, everyone—and we mean everyone—is lining their lips again. We’re talking everyone from Olivia Rodrigo and Sydney Sweeney to K-popstar Lisa (who’s just made her acting debut in the newest season of The White Lotus), and Lily-Rose Depp, who made a compelling case for matte lined nude lips throughout the Nosferatu press tour. But there’s no bigger advocate for lip liner than perhaps Sabrina Carpenter, whose go-to lip combo has led to a swell of curiosity online. (According to Carpenter, it’s Makeup Forever’s pencil in the shade Whatever Walnut and the Hourglass Glossy balm in the shade Desire.) “Those who know, know. I’m a lip liner girl until the day I die,” she declared in a video, with the conviction of someone who’s clearly obsessed with the stuff.
