I don’t know about you, but I am having a real love affair with liquid lipsticks at the moment – the best ones stay all day, don’t transfer, and survive the messiest of foods. Yeah, I’m looking at you, tacos. I have a few liquid lipsticks in bold colours because I live in the school of thought that says GO BIG, OR GO HOME. (I spend a lot of time at home these days, so maybe I need a better phrase.)

I have one issue with these beautiful matte colours though. (Well, besides the fact that they are DRYING AF and if I forget to scrub my poor lips, they go all dry and awful). And this issue is this – after a long day of lots of delicious foods, I thoroughly wash my face…and the lipstick is still there. Wash again. Still there. I then panic and/or go to bed with my lipstick on. At least I’ll wake up looking gorgeous.

I know what you’re thinking. But, Caz – why don’t you just use makeup remover like everyone else? Well, I do. And I tell you what, I have sensitive skin, and my lovely gentle L’Oreal and Soap and Glory makeup removers have a good try but they still can’t get it all off. Waterproof mascara? No problem. Lipstick? Hahaha…no.

Slight tangent. You know when you buy a notebook or something, and it has a barcode sticker on it? Or you buy a gift for a mate and you got it at 20% off because the stars were aligned or something, and then you go home to get that damn sticker off and it half rips off but leaves a sticky papery residue? You know those stickers? The ones that were invented to make you cry? Yeah. Well, I had a bit of a Sticker Situation a few months ago and after consulting Doctor Google – it turns out that you can remove sticky residue with oil. OIL. All this time i’ve been scrubbing away with soap and water  (or even vinegar and bicarbonate of soda because someone on the internet said it worked, but I guess this is the same person who said that you can clean forks more quickly if you microwave them. YOU CAN’T, PLEASE DON’T DO THAT.) and it turns out that the best way to get rid of stickers is oil. I know, whaaattt?

So I got thinking. What if it was the same for lipsticks? I mean, they get kind of tacky and sticky when you’ve tried to wash them off but they’re still being a stubborn little shit about it. What if they’re the face’s version of a Sticker Situation? So I got thinking more.

Now, I didn’t want to use my indulgently expensive Kiehl’s face oil to try this out, so maybe that would work even better. But I did nip to the shops and I picked up some baby oil. And I’ll just cut to the chase – IT WORKS. It actually works!

Sorry-not-sorry for all the lips you’re about to see. Maybe you like that kind of thing, in which case, you’re welcome.

Here is Mac’s retro matte liquid lipstick in ‘Carnivorous’, which I absolutely love. I have applied it fairly haphazardly so I’m sorry about that.

And here is what it looks like after I’ve wash my face twice. Yes, twice.

Ugh. And here is what it looks like after I’ve reapplied it fully, waited ten minutes for it to dry, then firmly swiped some baby oil all over my lips to remove it.

Not a trace left behind! It is actual magic. Here’s what I do.

I grab a little cotton face pad or cotton ball, douse it in baby oil, and firmly swipe towards my inner mouth (to reduce smearing colour all over my cheeks/chin) – and the lipstick just comes right off! And the biggest bonus of it all is that baby oil is super, super cheap. Much cheaper than my makeup remover which I can save for the eyes (which I guess you probably don’t want to get baby oil in – so I don’t recommend for removing eyeliner or mascara, I’m not a sadist.)

Swipe, swipe. Oh look, half gone already!

My recommendation is to swipe it off before removing the rest of your makeup and continuing with your normal skincare routine, as sometimes the colour smudges as you take it off, and you really could do with washing off all that oil with a cleanser.

So, that’s my miracle product! Baby oil. It is just the best. And, top tip, you can use it to remove those stubborn stickers with it too!

Do you have any makeup removal hacks? Or do you use baby oil?