The concept of ombré has been around in beauty for many seasons now. We’ve seen it on the hair of cool downtown girls and irreverent models (and thought for sure it was dying at the end of 2011–we were wrong), and of course on manicures everywhere. It was only a matter of time before it moved to lipstick.

Ombré lips first caught our attention on Prabal Gurung’s spring 2012 runway, when he sent down models that looked like they’d been sucking on a grape lollipop. The look gained momentum on the fall 2012 runways–Nina Ricci, Gucci, Yohji Yamamoto, and Raf Simons for his Dior couture debut all showed versions. The effect continued to ripple to the 2013 shows, where Holly Fulton did a mod orange and fuchsia lip. It’s now effectively reached beauty community critical mass, with over 2,000 videos on YouTube and hundreds of pictures on Pinterest.

Although this look is definitely dramatic, beauty bloggers have demonstrated how to make it wearable and fun, while emphasizing the fullness of your lips. But it’s definitely not for beauty beginners. So we turned to some experts to get tips on how to take the look off the runway, where the “fade” should begin, and the color combinations that work best at showing off your Lindsey Wixsons.

Photos: Imaxtree/Pinterest