play up vs put lipstick on a pig

play up

verb
  • To make or attempt to make something appear more important, likely, or obvious; to showcase or highlight. 

  • To play more vigorously. 

  • To be unfaithful to a lover; to cheat; used with on. 

  • To misbehave. 

put lipstick on a pig

verb
  • To superficially alter something in the hope of making it seem more appealing than it is in actuality. 

How often have the words play up and put lipstick on a pig occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )