Q I hate my thin lips, but I don't want to get plastic surgery to plump them up. Any other way to make them look fuller?

A Not all of us are blessed with an Angelina Jolie pout and, thankfully, make-up can make mouths look fuller without the need for surgery - Lara Flynn Boyle's overnight bee-stung lips are etched in my mind, and not in a good way.

There are several ways to beef up your lips without resorting to a cosmetic filler. You can redefine your mouth with a nude or skin-coloured lip pencil, tracing outside your natural lip contour, then filling in colour, to make your mouth look bigger. Shiny textured lip make-up - either a gloss or a lipstick with more emollients in it for that wet, lustrous look - also help to amplify mouths.

There are also lip bases or lip-plumping glosses, like Clinique's Full Potential Lips Plump And Shine, that have collagen-producing peptides (these simulate our natural amino acids that tell cells to make more protein) which help to fatten pouts long-term (as long as you keep using the stuff). Clinique's version also uses botanical extracts to give an instant upsize to smiles, for up to six hours.