Lime Lips

About

Lime Lips is an art reference image that was popularized online after 2016, which features a mouth with a pair of bright-green lips biting a lime. The image originates from a photo posted by makeup artist @vladmua, with various Pinterest blogs and YouTube drawing tutorials using the image as a reference for beginners' hyperrealism art tutorials. The picture then made an ironic viral resurgence on TikTok in 2021 and 2023 as an exploitable in memes.

Origin

On July 13th, 2016, makeup artist Vlada Haggerty posted an image to her Instagram^[1] makeup blog, @vladamua. The image featured a closeup of her lips painted a shiny shade of lime green and her mouth holding and squeezing a lime. The post gathered over 30,000 likes in nearly seven years (seen below). The photo was then reposted to a Facebook^[2] hyper-realistic drawing reference page on July 30th, 2016, gathering over 40,000 likes in nearly seven years.

Spread

In the latter half of 2016 and 2017, the picture was popularized as a reference for beginner and hyper-realism artists.^[4][5] For example, an August 5th, 2016, upload by Kaitlin73 gathered over 18,000 views in seven years on Imgur (seen below, left).^[3] On January 26th, 2019, a Lime Lips drawing was posted to the subreddit /r/drawing by user /u/mandalaa_xo,^[6] where it gathered over 7,000 upvotes in three years (seen below, right).

On April 22nd, 2021, TikToker^[7] @holyquaranteen posted a video noting the viral phenomenon of the Lime Lips reference image, adding that drawing Lime Lips is not an act of choice but a process of getting possessed by the urge to do so upon receiving one's first drawing book and set of pencil colors. The video gathered over 100,000 plays and 60,000 likes in over a year (seen below, left). On December 5th, 2021, TikToker^[8] @d_d4ddy posted a video saying that the "Lime Lips Core" genre of hyper-realistic art sucks, gathering over 1 million plays and 200,000 likes in over a year (seen below, right).

On August 23rd, 2022, TikToker^[9] @maddox_louise_ posted a video asking if anyone remembers the Lime Lips drawing trend, noting that no one ever finished the rest of the face to accompany the lips. The video gathered over 2.9 million plays and 670,000 likes in nearly five months (seen below, left). On October 25th, 2022, TikToker^[10] @isabella.drawsss posted a video saying that she saw her own old art in the aforementioned TikToker's video and jokingly apologized for her participation in the trend before photoshopping her lips onto the Wise Mystical Tree meme. The video gathered over 1 million plays and 260,000 likes in nearly three months (seen below, right).

On January 21st, 2023, TikToker^[11] @lilybanbean posted a video of them and their friends drawing several Lime Lips, joking about it being another hard day at the Lime Lip factory. The post gathered over 300,000 plays and 80,000 likes in two days (seen below, left). On January 22nd, the TikToker^[12] posted another video of them in their "Lime Lair," with various drawings of green lips hung up on their wall. The video gathered over 300,000 plays and 85,000 likes in nearly a day (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References