Beauty / news
Celebrity Makeup Artists Name Their Go-To Lip Combinations
Five celebrity makeup artists, from breakout creator Ngozi Edeme to veteran Sam Fine, have shared the layered lip looks they are favoring now and the exact products behind them.
The format in question is the "lip combo" — a pairing of liner, color and gloss that artists build in layers rather than applying a single bullet. The five artists involved include Edeme, known online as @paintedbyesther, whose client roster includes Emma Grede, Precious Way and Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Sheika Daley.
Sam Fine, whose clients include Queen Latifah, Viola Davis and Gabrielle Union, pointed to Union's appearance at the 2025 screening of "Riff Raff" as his current reference point. He described the result as a classic nude lip, a signature of his work since early in his career with Naomi Campbell, built on definition plus a pale color and a hint of gloss for a soft glow.
The product stack he used comprises Victoria Beckham Beauty Lip Definer in shades 05 and 06, Victoria Beckham Posh Lip in "Girl" and Kevyn Aucoin Celestial Lip Gloss in "Raina".
His method starts with a brown liner a few shades deeper than the client's skin tone, which is feathered softly into the lips to build depth and dimension before the paler shade and gloss go on top.
The remaining artists' picks and techniques round out the five-person edit of looks and the product combinations used to recreate them.