TikTok Made Me Try Contouring My Face With a Lip Liner

True confession: I spend an ungodly amount of time on TikTok. I know that half of the people reading this (and probably half of the people I know in real life) think that all I’m doing is rotting my brain, but in all honesty, the app has led me to some pretty interesting information. Yes, I do find myself fact-checking half of it (I guess that’s just the journalist in me), but when TikTok has a good tip, there’s just no denying it.

I first came across this little one-product contour tip when beauty influencer Meredith Duxbury was showing how she used it for an easy, effortless look, but the hack actually originated from makeup artist Emily Wood.

When I initially saw Wood’s video, I genuinely thought she was messing around. In it, you watch her take a lip liner and essentially squiggle lines on her nose, cheeks, eyelids, and around her lips. Prior to blending, it looks like something a 3-year-old would draw right before nap time at preschool. The kicker? It actually looked really freaking good once Wood was done blending.

I’m all for a no-makeup makeup look, and I genuinely love hacks that are easy and effortless, so I just had to try this one out. My itch to test it only increased in the days that followed, because it seemed like practically every beauty influencer on my FYP was loving it. Luckily, the only thing I needed to re-create it was my fingers and a lip liner, so I could get to it right away.

When it came to picking the right product, I knew I wanted something that would blend easily; I opted for the Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil Longwear Lip Liner ($24) in Wherever Walnut, which is a warm rose nude.

I started out by prepping my face for the makeup by doing my full skin-care routine — including serum, moisturizer, and SPF. From there, I used the Saie Glowy Super Gel ($28), which I’ve been using as a primer. From there, I followed up with the tiniest bit of the It Cosmetics CC+ Cream Illumination with SPF ($47) all over my face to get rid of any uneven color and hyperpigmentation.

Next, it was time to try the hack. I started out by drawing a squiggly line across my forehead. (To be honest, I’m not sure if the shape matters, but it’s what everyone else was doing, so I followed suit.) From there, I drew a little circle on the tip of my nose and did some squiggles on each of my cheeks. Everything felt pretty normal up until this point, but then it was time to majorly over-line my lips.

I don’t usually over-line my lips in general, and especially not with a brown lip liner, but I went for it anyway. Last but not least, I did a couple of lines over each of my eyelids. Wood then uses a balm to blend everything out, so I opted to blend using my Rhode Peptide Glazing Fluid ($30), which is what Duxbury did in her video.

After much blending, a tiny bit of touching up, and some mascara, I was ready to head out the door. Was it the most glam look I’ve ever encountered? No, definitely not. However, was it easy, and did it look good? Hell yes. Therefore, it’s a hack I will be repeating — especially when I’m on the go, or I need to quickly touch my makeup up and all I have handy is a lip liner. You gotta love TikTok.

Renee Rodriguez (she/her) is a staff writer and social producer for PS. She writes across all verticals, but her main areas of expertise focus on fashion and beauty content with an emphasis on reviews and editor experiments. She also produces social content for the PS TikTok and Instagram accounts.