1. You cannot disguise flaky lips with lipstick. In fact it hurts a little and it looks uglier. Therefore it is very important to protect your lips with a lip balm.
2. Avoid Vaseline or anything that is petroleum based when conditioning your lips, it will cause your lipstick colour to slide off. Instead choose waxy Chap Stick and allow it to sink in your lips for a few minutes. It helps your lip colour to last longer too.
3. If you have naturally dark lips and have a natural darker skin tone. Dark lipstick colour will flatter your natural skin tone. If you wish to have a lighter lip tone, you may apply creamy foundation to your lips and apply your desired lip colour. Do avoid colours that are bright, shimmery or pastel as these colours are not the most suitable for people with darker skin tone.
4. You may find that perfect red lipstick by mixing and matching your own red lipstick colour tone. Add a little brown to your bright red lipstick to experiment until you find the colour tone that suits you.
5. Make up can be a temporarily solution to deep lines and wrinkles above your lips. You can use cream based makeup with reflective ingredients that will actually fill in the lines and make the lines on your face less visible. I would recommend a good skincare regime to concealing all these lines.