Unlike the trend of highlighting and contouring, or HACing, the trend of liquid lipsticks is pretty doable for anybody. With HACing, you really have to have some kind of idea of what you’re doing, what you want to bring forth or set back, blah, blah, blah. And yes, I don’t have it totally down either, just parts of my face.

With the liquid lipstick trend, it’s basically lip color on steroids so if you can apply lipstick or lip gloss, you can apply liquid lipsticks!

It seems to have started out as just a handful of brands a few years ago with MAC (I even have theirs in my Hall of Fame), Korres, Addiction NV (who I don’t think is around anymore), Make Up For Ever and L’Oreal and it wasn’t even called liquid lipstick; not even sure when the name liquid lipstick started surfacing with these.

I’m a fan of all the aforementioned brands but just in case you were wondering, I think the OG liquid lipstick brand has to be LipSense by SeneGence. Thoughts?

But now, this seems to be a full-on trend with whole brands being built just on it like Jeffree Star’s new collection, Pretty Zombie Cosmetics and I’m sure others I just haven’t caught up with just yet.

So just what is liquid lipstick anyways? Click after the jump to find out!

It’s a highly concentrated liquid-y pigmented color for lips. Most formulas are non-transferable, as in the color, so once it’s on your lips, it’s on and really won’t move for hours unless you eat something oily. So because of this, most will have a matte to super matte finish.

What should you look for in a good liquid lipstick?

I tend to gravitate towards bright shades when it comes to these for some reason. The only thing I've seen that makes for a no-so-good-liquid-lipstick is when a brand puts some kind of effect in it like shimmer. They just don't seem to wear as well or last as long on lips so just stick with the plain colored ones.

Brands that have liquid lipsticks in their line that I’ve seen: LA Splash Cosmetics, Stila, Sephora, Too Faced, Rimmel London, Revlon, Cailyn Cosmetics, Milani, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Dose of Colors, Hourglass Cosmetics, Kat Von D, Lime Crime, and probably so many more that I’m just not aware of … yet. Do you think OCC’s Lip Tars and J. Cat Beauty’s Wonder Lip Paints would also fall into this category? Discuss!

As I mentioned above, you’ll find that most have a matte finish but I just found two that fall on the more moisturizing side. One is the Paint Wash Liquid Lip Colour ($28 @ nordstrom.com) from LAURA MERCIER. Just wow! The color shown here is Fuchsia Mauve. The other new one I’m liking that’s along the same moisturizing lines as the above is MERLE NORMAN’s Liquid Lipcolor ($15 @ merlenorman.com for locations), shown here in At Last.

One thing to make note of when it comes to these two is that even though they are liquid lipsticks and last quite a while on the lips, they are both transferable, so maybe this is the direction the trend is headed. I seem to like both this formula and the more matte formulas. I guess is just depends on my overall goal with regard to which one I choose. Either way, I’m on-board with this trend, big time.

Have you tried any liquid lipsticks? What do you think? Do share in the comments!