Re: Power-In-A-Tube

Yay, we have discourse!

LOVE.

I must emphasize just how much I love to hear from you - I love to hear from you a lot! You totally rock my world. I would equate the joy of getting comments/e-mails from you with the kind I feel when I go shopping and find the cutest, most well-made item ever, marked way down, with the very last article in great condition and in my size. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So after reading this post, the sweetness known as my friend, Ramir (who I miss ridiculously), wrote:

"...I was in Sephora two months ago and I saw this thing called Lip Venom...it makes your lips gi-normous to right amount of volume and pout. So, what are your thoughts about that Soap Heiress?"

Okay, I'm going to address this to everybody because it's an interesting one.

Is it better than lip injections? Well, it certainly is less invasive and way cheaper. I can't attest to its effectiveness though, because I avoid all plumping products like the plague, since my lips are already huge enough to take over the world.

Let me give you a little bit of background. DuWop's Lip Venom was developed by two makeup artists working on a TV show, who wanted to re-create that red plumpness of the actors' lips after they do makeout scenes. So they set to work to develop a product with that goal in mind, and came up with Lip Venom. The ingredients that purportedly create that effect are cinnamon, ginger and wintergreen essential oils.

As the heiress of an all-natural soap company, I must tell you that you have to be very careful about putting essential oils on your bare skin, especially if it's a high concentration. Most essential oils are very irritating - only a few, like lavender and tea tree, are safe to use on bare skin.

But of course, it's the irritation that makes your lips look bee-stung. You have to decide for yourself if it's worth it. I've read online that some people experience a lot of pain using this product - I'd stay away from it if you've got sensitive lips, chapped lips or broken skin. However, there are also many women who swear by it and love the results.

From watching a ton of trashy reality makeover shows, the knowledge I've gleaned is this: you can't drastically change what you were born with, even with the most drastic procedures. I often think that makeup, hair and wardrobe work make a bigger difference than surgeries (e.g. a person with a huge schnoz usually still has a huge schnoz post-surgery) - and the confidence boost in thinking you look better makes the biggest difference. So I believe that, with regards to lip plumpers, if it makes a difference to you and makes you feel better about yourself (and you don't have sensitive lips/broken skin!), I say go for it.

Watch out about kissing someone with sensitive lips, though!

And my friend Sabrina, with whom I survived the sorority experience and the misadventures of living in a sorority house, showed me this "sorority-inspired lipstick personality test" which was featured on Jezebel.

Well, let me announce here and now that they did not come up with this. I've seen it before, in some women's magazine or other. Because Greeks (by that I mean collegians in sororities or fraternities) absolutely LOVE to copy things. Our song book had re-written versions of everything, from Grease tunes to Disney classics to pop songs, all edited to mention and praise the members of our organization - and of course, we were the only ones.

That said, I think it's a fun concept. For me, it's pretty inaccurate though - I think it's just distasteful to use your lipstick to the point of grossness by completely mangling the natural shape. Do most women mess up their lipsticks? You get better results by using them they way they were meant to be used, I can assure you.

And really, how can you clump all women in seven or eight categories? But it's the same idea with magazine personality tests and with astrology, I suppose. My high school science teacher used to tell us, "Always remember that you're unique - just like everybody else!"