We often get e-mails from women fretting about lip ‘feathering’, so we wanted to share with all of you this pencil from Nudestix. (Whose chunky lip crayons we recently wrote about here). It’s called a ‘Blur Pencil’. Waxy-textured, it’s intended to minimise the appearance of fine lines and imperfections, including pores, lines and creases. It does certainly ‘blur’ pores – but is less good on deep wrinkles and furrows, at least on ours. However, where we’ve found it really comes into its own is with the aforementioned feathering, immediately softening the appearance of those troublesome lines around the lips.

What also seems to happen is that because the pencil has a slightly waxy texture, it somewhat inhibits the tendency of lipstick to ‘travel’ into those feathery lines. (Applying the lipstick first, then the Blur Pencil, works best, we’re finding.)

Oh, we love a brand new solution to an age-old beauty problem.

Nudestix Blur Pencil/£24 at www.ukspacenk.com