Whether you’re enhancing your natural pout or plumping for a bolder look à la Naomi Campbell or Pamela Anderson in the Nineties, the best lip liners are among the beauty world’s most powerful tools.
Plumping and defining your lips, with no filler in sight, think of them as the Swiss Army knife of your make-up bag. The right product can transform your face, whether it’s helping lipstick look sharper or making your Cupid’s bow more chiselled.
Its first use can be traced back to the 1920s when actresses such as Clara Bow accentuated their Cupid’s bow and lower lip for the flapper’s signature demure doll-like mouth. With lip liners later being adopted by Hollywood icons Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe in the Forties and Fifties, their contoured pouts have become synonymous with the eras’ glamour.
After weeks of testing dozens of liners, we managed to narrow down an impressive shortlist. Mac’s lip pencil (£17, Boots.com) went down a treat – Jennifer Aniston wore the liner in the shade ‘spice’ in Friends – while, relative make-up newcomer Refy ended up being our pick of the bunch, with its lip sculpt liner (£18, Sephora.co.uk) that left our pout looking plump for a whopping nine hours.
For more of the best, from pencils to retractable liners, scroll on for our top picks to suit every budget and skin tone.
How we tested
From neutral liners that give the illusion of fuller lips to sharper formulas that feather out lipstick, we’ve tried and tested all the best lip liners. Our tester has loved and used some of these lip liners for years (see: Kosas, Refy, Mac and Charlotte Tilbury), while others were worn daily for up to a week each, including long days in the office and balmy trips abroad. We pitted cult products against budget buys, with a sprinkling of luxury offerings, too. Here’s everything we took into consideration while testing:
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
Daisy Lester has been reviewing beauty for IndyBest since 2020 and wears a lip liner daily, come rain or shine. Not to mention she’s tested countless lip products, from Rhode’s peptide lip shaper to the best lip oils. From her daily commute on the steamy Underground to trips abroad and brunches, she was well placed to put the industry’s most popular lip liners through their paces. Not to mention she’s a big fan of a Kylie Jenner-esque overline, which really tested the limits of the formulas that made her longlist.
The best lip liners are:
Refy lip sculpt
Best: Lip liner overall
Shades available: Taupe, fawn, sepia, blush, rosewood, dusk, red
Shade tested: Rosewood
Type: Twist-up soft tip and gel setter
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Multi-tool
- Lipstick effect
- Long-lasting
- Plump, full lips
Jess Hunt’s brand Refy is fast becoming one of the biggest names in beauty, thanks to its considered line-up of brow-fluffing, lash-defining and lip-enhancing products.
This lip sculpt liner boasts a dual-ended applicator that helps create the perfect pout. At one end, there’s a creamy and blendable soft tip that glides smoothly across your lips, whether creating definition or filling in fine lines. At the other end, there’s a gel setter to help create a smooth, matte finish. This not only reduces applications but sets the colour for a lipstick effect. The pigment lasts a good nine hours, with the range of neutral shades creating the illusion of plump, full lips. The brand’s pleasing minimalist grey packaging is the cherry on top.
Buy now £18.00, Sephora.co.uk
NYX professional make-up suede matte lip liner
Best: Budget lip liner
Shades available: Cannes, cherry skies, club hopper, San Paulo
Shade tested: Cannes
Type: Classic pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Super affordable
- Very precise
- Buttery-soft matte finish
If it’s good enough for Simone Biles at the 2024 Paris Olympics, it’s good enough for us. Costing less than £5, NYX’s lip liner is a stellar tool in your beauty arsenal. The pencil boasts a sharp tip, for extra precision, and comes in a variety of shades – from neutrals to enhance your natural lips to bolder hues for a contoured effect. With a buttery-soft matte finish, the pencil glides on smoothly. While it’s not the most long-lasting (reapplication is needed after four hours), we can look past this gripe, considering the price. The formula is a little less soft than others we’ve tried, so make sure your lips are properly exfoliated before application, to avoid build-up.
Buy now £4.00, Boots.com
Charlotte Tilbury lip cheat
Best: Everyday lip liner
Shades available: 17
Shade tested: Pillow talk medium
Type: Classic pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: Cruelty-free but not vegan
Why we love it
- Natural-looking
- Blendable and lightweight
- Nourishing
For a natural look, we always turn to Charlotte Tilbury’s lip cheat liner in the shade “pillow talk medium”. The pencil boasts a buttery-soft tip that glides smoothly across and around your lips for a subtly enhanced finish. Super blendable and lightweight, it’s easy to apply, with little to no transfer. The formula is infused with jojoba seed oil to lock in nourishment and moisture, so it doesn’t feel cakey or tacky when layered with lipstick, oils and balms. Plus, the staying power is impressive, with one application lasting a good eight hours or so (even during hot weather). Owing to the soft formula, make sure you sharpen the pencil regularly, to maintain its precise tip.
Buy now £22.00, Cultbeauty.co.uk
Mac lip pencil
Best: Matte lip liner
Shades available: 23
Shades tested: Spice and cherry
Type: Classic pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: Neither confirmed vegan nor cruelty-free given that the brand retails in China where animal testing is required
Why we love it
- Perfect for Nineties looks
- Easy to blend
- Long-lasting
- Clean sharp lines
The very product responsible for those iconic Nineties make-up looks, Mac’s lip pencil is somewhat legendary. The formula has been rejigged in the decades since but remains a cult classic. We’ve been using the spice colourway for years, to give the illusion of a fuller pout, while the cherry colourway is the perfect dopamine-inducing shade of bright red. The creamy pencil has an impressive colour payoff, is easy to blend, and it’s long-lasting (between seven to nine hours). The tip is hard, so it creates sharp lines, a clean finish and doesn’t require sharpening too often. It’s available in 23 shades, and we’d recommend going a shade darker than your natural lips for a contoured finish or colour match with your favourite lipstick.
Buy now £17.00, Boots.com
Maybelline lifter lip liner
Best: Lip liner for easy application
Shades available: Big lift, cross the line, fine line, line leader, main character and peaking
Shades tested: Fine line
Type: Soft pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: No
Why we love it
- Affordable
- Buttery and moisturising
- Good accuracy
- Doesn’t need much sharpening
Take note
- Not super long-lasting
One of the most reliable beauty brands on the high street, Maybelline is a go-to for stocking up your make-up bag on a budget. The brand’s formulas aren’t world-changing but they do the job. Case in point: its lifter lip liner, which comes in seven neutral shades and gives lips definition and colour.
The precision tip boasts a buttery-soft formula that’s infused with hyaluronic acid and jojoba oil, to lock in moisture and blend across your lips. The applicator can be sharpened for extra accuracy, though, we found it didn’t need this regularly. While the rich colour pigment is great for contouring your pout, the finish doesn’t have the best-staying power (it started to smudge and buff around three hours after application).
Buy now £5.94, Boots.com
Too Faced lip injection extreme lip shaper
Best: Plumping lip liner
Shades available: Cinnamon swell, espresso shot, hot and spicy, post-op pink and puffy nude
Shades tested: Puffy nude
Type: Pen with button to push out the tip
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Added plumping benefit
- Lovely smell
- Subtle finish
This nifty pen features a button to push out the tip, so there’s no need for a sharpener. Infused with nourishing ingredients, such as shea butter and jojoba oil, the liner glides effortlessly onto lips. The sweet berry smell is a lovely if not unusual touch. It’s not as precise as others we’ve tested, as the tip is quite flat – but the plumping effect is the main appeal. It leaves an immediate tingling sensation that gives way to a slight numbness and it yields impressive results. Within five minutes, lips look plump, full and defined, whether filled in completely with the liner or just outlined.
The shade range favours neutral tones to suit various skin complexions – with the puffy nude shade perfectly suiting our lip colour and leaving a subtle finish. We noticed it fading around hour six but it’s lightweight and creamy enough to top up throughout the day, without any build-up or dryness.
Buy now £18.75, Boots.com
Givenchy lip liner
Best: Precise lip liner
Shades available: 11
Shades tested: No2
Type: Classic pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: No
Why we love it
- Excellent precision and definition
- Great for filling in fine lines
When it comes to precision and creating a chiselled outline, Givenchy’s classic pencil lip liner is the best we tried. The sharp tip creates definition and fullness around the lips, and it’s great for filling in fine lines, for a smoother finish. It also comes with its own sharpener, for keeping the pencil precise. For a softer look, we used our fingers to buff and feather out the colour. Despite the hard tip, skin doesn’t feel pulled or tugged during application, and the formula boasts impressive staying power (around nine hours). It comes in 11 different shades, with no2 proving the perfect summery lip colour for us, while no6 oozes elegance. Owing to the hard applicator, it’s not great at filling in your pout, so we relied on lipstick or tinted lip balm to complete our look.
Buy now £17.10, Boots.com
Kosas hotliner hyaluronic acid contouring lip liner
Best: Hydrating lip liner
Shades available: 100, max, epic, mega, infinite, supreme, beyond and extra
Shades tested: Mega
Type: Retractable
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Great for dry lips
- Hyaluronic-powered formula
- Softer finish compared with pencil formulas
- No sharpening necessary
If your lips are prone to dryness with classic pencils, let us steer you in the direction of Kosas’s hotliner. A dream to apply, thanks to its hyaluronic-powered formula, the liner is hydrating and creamy, gliding effortlessly across lips without any pulling. Jojoba oil visibly softens and locks in moisture for up to six hours, too. The tip is angled but not sharp, so it creates a softer finish compared with pencil formulas, while a small brush at the opposite end helps buff and blend the colour pigment across your lips, for a natural tint. The colour pigment lasts a good seven or eight hours with the neutral shade range contouring, defining and plumping your pout. Plus, the liner boasts a retractable tip, so there’s no fussing with sharpeners. Layer with Kosas’s wet lip oil for the ultimate shiny pout.
Buy now £20.00, Spacenk.com
Victoria Beckham beauty lip definer pencil
Best: Luxury lip liner
Shades available: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and red
Shades tested: 2
Type: Classic pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Sharp and precise outline
- Smooth matte finish
Take note
- On the pricier side
This is definitely a pricey option but it seriously delivers on staying power. The hard tip pencil creates a sharp and precise outline, while the creamy formula easily fills in your lips and any lines for a smooth, matte finish. Richly pigmented and available in seven flattering colours, the payoff lasts a good 10 or so hours. Great for creating that Nineties-contoured look, we opted for a colour one shade darker than our natural lips and filled in with a slightly lighter lipstick. The well-formulated pencil doesn’t cause any dryness, and it is powered by peptides to minimise the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines. Tick, tick, tick.
Buy now £30.00, Selfridges.com
Vieve modern lip definer
Best: Long-lasting lip liner
Shades available: Aphrodyte, bark, bewitched, brat, muse, peach’d, rogue rouge, rumour, stupid cupid, tailored, velvet sands
Shades tested: Peach’d
Type: Soft pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Almost like a lip balm
- Silky formula
- Highly pigmented
- Long-lasting
Vieve’s lip liner feels almost like a balm, thanks to its creamy, silky-smooth formula. Pleasingly blendable for a matte finish, the pencil is highly pigmented, so only a few strokes are needed. The texture is lovely and it doesn’t dry out or tug at your lips, while the colour payoff creates a natural-looking and subtly plumped pout. Best of all, the product lasts around nine hours before fading. Make sure you have a sharpener on hand, as it requires regular maintenance to achieve a precise tip.
Buy now £19.00, Cultbeauty.co.uk
Huda Beauty lip contour 2.0
Best: Lip liner for pigment
Shades available: Deep rose, honey beige, muted pink, pinky brown, rich brown, rusty pink, sandy beige, terracotta, universal red, very berry, vivid pink, warm brown
Shades tested: Rusty pink
Type: Soft pencil
Cruelty-free and vegan: Yes, both
Why we love it
- Pigment is rich and long-lasting
- Velvet matte finish
- Plump pout
Huda Beauty’s lip contour is a nifty tool for your make-up arsenal. While the soft tip is retractable, there’s a handy sharpener at the opposite end, too. Plus, the pigment is rich and long-lasting (around nine hours), with no transfer. There are 12 shades for colour matching, whether with your favourite red lipstick or for a natural shade. Boasting a velvet matte finish, it creates a soft-focused, plump pout, with the nourishing formula locking in moisture. A stellar base product, the lip liner’s gel-like consistency blends seamlessly with lipstick.
Buy now £19.00, Sephora.co.uk
Your lip liner questions answered
What is the best lip liner?
With its dual-action lining and setting design, Refy’s lip sculpt can transform the appearance of your pout. The soft and smooth tip glides on effortlessly, while the setting gel creates a matte look that lasts all day. If you’re on a budget, NYX’s and Maybelline’s liners help with definition and contouring, while, if you’re after fullness without filler, Kosas’s and Charlotte Tilbury’s premium pencils won’t leave you disappointed.
How to apply lip liner
There are two schools of thought around lip liner application, with the first being to line just the edges of the lips (as the product name suggests) and the second involving filling in the entirety of your pout. Follow these steps for successful application:
To complete your look, check out our pick of the best lip glosses
