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How are bilabial consonants produced?

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Diagram of a human head in profile showing the location of vocal organs and possible places of articulation for speech sounds, with labels for lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, pharynx, and vocal cords, and numbered regions corresponding to types of articulation such as bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
phonetics Diagram depicting the location of human vocal organs and possible places of articulation used for speech.

In articulatory phonetics, bilabial consonants are produced using both lips as the primary articulators.12

During the formation of these sounds, the airstream moving through the vocal tract is obstructed by the contact or approximation of the upper and lower lips. This place of articulation is one of several used to classify consonants, which are further distinguished by their manner of articulationā€”such as whether they are produced as a stop, fricative, or other type of sound.1

For example, the sounds represented by the letter p in pin and spin are classified as voiceless bilabial stops. These sounds can vary based on factors like aspiration, which refers to the timing of the glottal state during the release of the lips.3