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Lips and mouth

Full, thin and bow-shaped lips, the Cupid's bow and the philtrum. 6 face guides on EveryFaceShape so far.

Lips come full or thin, wide or narrow, with a sharp or soft Cupid's bow. Above the upper lip runs the philtrum, the small groove beneath the nose. Lip shape is inherited and varies within every population; fashions for one shape or another have come and gone. Lips have been coloured with plant dyes, ochre and safflower for thousands of years, and in some traditions pierced or tattooed.

Bow and groove

The Cupid's bow is the double curve at the centre of the upper lip; its two peaks sit at the bottom of the philtral columns, the ridges of the philtrum. Both form in the embryo where tissue growing from each side of the face meets in the middle. The vermilion is the red part of the lip, and its edge, the vermilion border, is the line lipstick and liner follow.

Lips in tradition

Lip colour is old: Sumerian and Egyptian women used crushed stones and dyes, and Edo Japan used beni from safflower. Ainu women of Hokkaido were tattooed around the mouth until a ban in 1871. Labrets, ornaments worn in a lip piercing, were worn by Aztec nobles, Tlingit and Haida women and Inuit men, and Mursi women of Ethiopia wear clay lip plates.

Famous lips face guides

LipThe vermilion and its border

Cupid's bowThe double curve of the upper lip

PhiltrumThe groove between nose and lip

LipstickLip colour, worn for thousands of years

LabretLip ornaments of the Americas and Arctic

Lip plateWorn by Mursi and Surma women

Further reading

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Labret: Metalhead64, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
Lip plate: Monkeyji, CC BY 2.0, source
Lipstick: Sjr, Public domain, source
Philtrum: Rick Kimpel, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
Cupid's bow: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
White roll: Original: Genusfotografen (Tomas Gunnarsson) Modified: Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

The weekly digest

Every Monday: the face guide of the day, new pages on EveryFaceShape, and the conferences and anniversaries of the week ahead.