10 Genius Lipstick Hacks You've Never Tried Before

Here's exactly how to get the most out of your favorite shades.

1. Exfoliate dry lips for a smoother lipstick application with a clean, disposable mascara wand. Just apply a balm over your mouth first to give your lips some slip, so it's easier to slough away any flaky skin.

2. Keep lipstick off your teeth by sticking your clean pointer finger in your mouth, wrapping your lips around it, and pulling it out. Any lipstick that would have gotten on your teeth will be left on your finger.

3. Use your favorite pink lipstick of choice as a cheek color. Just be sure to blend it in with your finger like you would any cream blush.

4. Repurpose broken eye shadow as a lip color. If your favorite shadow crumbles and it's a color you'd also wear on your lips, store the broken pieces in a tiny container and mix what's left with some balm on a spoon, and then apply.

5. Use a concealer brush to achieve an opaque, precise application.

6. Or, use a fluffy eye shadow brush to apply your lipstick if you want more of a stained, diffused look.

7. Turn any lipstick into a long-wearing version with translucent powder. First, swipe on your lip color, hold a tissue over your mouth, and then dust translucent powder over it. A small amount of the powder with transfer onto the tissue this way, locking in your color.

8. If your lips have a lot of pink or red tones in them, pat concealer over them before you apply any lipstick to nude them out. This helps ensure that your lip color will look exactly how it does in the packaging on your lips; otherwise, the pink or red tones will alter how the color appears when you apply it.

9. You can also reshape your lips by first covering them with concealer, and then tracing just slightly outside your natural lip line with a lip liner pencil, making them appear larger. Continue to fill in your lips with the pencil for a matte look or finish with a gloss. See Jessie James Decker demonstrate this trick here (at the 4:37 mark).

10. Blot the right way: between applications to make your lip color last longer. Doing so removes excess oil on your lips from the first application, so that the second one grips it better and doesn't travel off of your lips as quickly.