I do a mild lip curl when sobbing; I'm sure of it now. The last time I did it was 12 days ago, and about six weeks ago before that. My mother does, but she only sobs from sadness, and her happy crying is always quiet and discreet. I have two younger sisters who do occasionally curl their lips with high-intensity sobbing. However, recently I've only seen the youngest do it. My middle sister has not sobbed in front of me in years so I'm not sure if she still does it. Her wedding is coming up this summer, though, and she has wept happily many times while talking about her love for her fiance, so I think that it's possible she'll sob on her wedding day.

On my father's side (Indian): Two aunts (out of three) curl their lips even when not sobbing. Five female cousins in my generation also do it. Two female cousins once removed curl their lips but only when sobbing. I can honestly say I haven't seen any male relative on my father's side curl their lips. I've only seen them tear up.

On my mother's side (Italian): one aunt and two uncles are lip curlers. One male cousin has curled his lip after his girlfriend dumped him. There are four female cousins in my generation on my mother's side. I've seen the oldest one (31) sob with an intensely curled lip. The other three are between the ages of 15-21 and I have seen them cry quietly in casual social settings. I haven't been with these three during truly sad, emotionally intense events so I've never seen them sob hard. However, two of them do a little wobbly lip curl when they talk and cry quietly; I don't know if this means anything, but maybe that makes it more likely that they genuinely lip curl when sobbing. Maybe.

Of note, relatives on my father's side sob much more easily and frequently. Those on my mother's side are quiet and tearful and it takes a lot to get them to sob; when they do sob, they do so quietly but for much longer than those on the Indian side of my family.

Last edited by truffle (February 20, 2017 2:43 pm)

I didn't cry in a long time, tear up, getting emotional yes but full on crying no. In my opinion I don't have a lip curl, but maybe full on crying there is a lip curl in every person. I am an only child and my parents never cry in front of me, therefore I can't really tell you about other peoples lip curl.
​Anyhow because of my profession I see a lot of people cry in front of me. Usually they try to hold back their tears and I have never seen a lip curl in any of these. Only little children do the lip curl quite often.

I haven't had full-on sobbing in years, but I don't recall any lip curl during it.

In retrospect, though, the girl I dated senior year of college had a very prominent lip curl.

I don't know if i Curl.i never paid attention.  I love the feeling of the tears flowing though.

The last time I cried, which was probably three or four months ago, tears flowed from my eyes fairly quickly and I know my chin and lower lip quivered a little but, but that's about it. In the rare instances I sob (it's been years) my bottom lip quivers, bulges out, and maybe curves downward a little bit, but it doesn't fully curl.

My younger sister has thinner lips than I do and I suspect she probably does lip curl.  She's a more emotional person and tends to cry a lot more often and a lot harder than I do.  She and I live far apart and don't get together very often, so I haven't seen her cry for at least a year -- and at that point I hadn't joined this board and didn't know what a lip-curl was. :-) But when I think back, I do remember her sobbing with a contorted lip and chin.