Hailey Bieber's new lip shaper is like a gym session for your lips

“I wanted there to still be that staying power of a liner, but with the creaminess of a contour.”
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Hailey Bieber wants your lips “to look like they did squats.” This isn't a new fitness hack, in case you're wondering. Rather, I'm chatting to Hailey over Zoom about some secret news: Rhode is launching a lip contour stick.

Given Hailey's love-affair with the ‘90s, this is surely just a fancy re-branding of the decade’s favourite makeup product, lip liner. Actually, no. Lip liner involves crafting a crisp, perfectly defined look with unhurried strokes – the antithesis of ‘quick’ and ‘easy’, which is Hailey's beauty love language.

And as I open the Rhode bag in front of me, the penny drops. There are no pops of fuchsia, coral or red in the line-up, but rather neutral beige, tan, mocha and mahogany – shades that (with the exception of the rose-coloured hues) could be mistaken for cheek contour sticks.

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“I love lipliner, I also love contour, I love bronzing my face,” says Hailey. "When you think about the creaminess behind a face contour and the way that you're able to shape and structure – I wanted to bring that same concept just for the lips.”

Enter the Rhode Peptide Lip Shape. It comes in 11 shades – some a lip identical hue, others designed to be more impactful for a night out. But they're all linked by a common thread: the shade names are inspired by ‘shaping’ movements you'd do in the gym (cue those lip squats).

Courtesy of Rhode

Hailey's personal favourites? “I have quite a pinky tone to my lips naturally…I would say the ones I reach for the most – for me personally and for the tones that I think complement me the best –would be Press, Twist, Lunge and Stretch.”

But there's no strict rubric for colour matching. “I find myself swapping between shades depending on the day, depending on how I feel.”

Right now, Hailey tells me that she's wearing Lunge, with the clear Peptide Lip Treatment over the top and, even in the harsh glow of Zoom, it makes her lips enviably pillowy, without looking like she's wearing a scrap of makeup. I make a mental note to set that shade aside for later.

“Sometimes I feel like I reach for Lunge when I'm just running out to a workout. I might just put it on really quick with nothing else and eyebrow gel." Twist combined with the Piggy Pocket Blush is another favourite and she's also “playing with the darker tones”.

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Hailey Bieber's lip contour hack

While a dewy skin look is non-negotiable, Hailey also confesses that she does “a lip combo every single day” to make her lips look fuller. Using the Peptide Lip Shape, the basis of her technique is to circle and define.

“I really define my Cupid's Bow because it's the biggest part of my lips,” says Hailey, leaning in to the camera to demonstrate how she overlines her Cupid's Bow with a softly rounded ‘M’ shape rather than sweeping straight across.

After overlining her bottom lip, “I go a little bit more tapered on the corners and the edges of my mouth," she says, sweeping the Peptide Lip Shape down towards the edge of her mouth to make the middle ‘M’ look more pronounced.

Imagine using a little concealer in the corner of the lips – this has the same sharpening effect.

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“I'm definitely cleaning up the edges that go into the corners of the mouth,” she adds, using the corner of the smudger that's conveniently connected to the pencil. “I'm really going by my natural lip structure," Hailey notes. “I think that's what gives it that your-lip-but-better look."

Hailey admits that, even if the end result is a more precise outline, “I'll go in and contour the perimeter. Even if the makeup artist is going to put a lip liner on for more colour or definition, I still am doing this first regardless.”

She also likes to lean into another popular makeup artist hack. Playing with light and shade, she lines her lips with the matte-yet-moisturised Peptide Lip Shape, before adding a glossy finish to the cushiony centre. "It's totally an optical illusion. The whole idea of contouring your face is to be able to play with the structure of your face and how the light hits it. And this is the same exact idea.”

Specifically, she loves pairing Pressed with the Peptide Lip Tint in Ribbon. If she wants more of a lip combo, Hailey says she opts for Stretch “because it's a deeper colour that I can combine with the Espresso Lip Tint.”

Rhode Peptide Lip Shape: My Verdict

My first impression when I twist up the pencil is that the Peptide Lip Shapes are surprisingly chunkier than I imagined – the tip is sized more like a lip crayon. But this makes sense, given they're not designed for pin-thin precision but rather a soft-focus contour.

They're also insanely creamy with a butter-smooth texture that glides on easily without tugging or dragging the lip line.

Fiona wearing Lunge

As with the Pocket Blushes, the pigment pay off is exceptional, even after you've softened the edges with the smudger. This was an especially important consideration, Hailey tells me: “Sometimes what happens with products that are really creamy is once you blend them in, they fade quite a bit. I wanted there to still be that staying power of a liner, but with the creaminess of a contour.”

As with all Rhode makeup, it's a hybrid product laced with plumping skincare ingredients, including fenugreek and a peptide. So even when test-driving the different shades in this week's sub-zero temperatures, my lips never felt dry or flaky.

Ultimately, though, the Peptide Lip Shape is all about creating plumper, pillowy and subtly smudged lips with just a few swipes. And Hailey Bieber has nailed that brief. “I love lips when they just look like they're so kissable and pillowy," she says. "I feel like that's why I like the idea of contouring the lips…Your lips but better – that's really like my whole vibe."

It's mine too now, especially when they're contoured in my two favourite shades in the collection: Lunge and Press.

The Rhode Peptide Lip Shape, £24, is available to buy now.

For more from Fiona Embleton, GLAMOUR's Associate Beauty Director, follow her on @fiembleton.