Pursing my lips at lip plumpers

I have thin lips.

My mother has full, pillowy lips, and no, they aren’t fake. Isn’t it sad that nothing is assumed to be real anymore? Full lips, big bosoms, Kate Spade bags. We all just assume it’s fake. Sad.

Anyway, I did not get mom’s lips. I got dad’s. I also got his poor temper, weak jawline and overdeveloped sense of humor.

I promise you that after all that, my mother will read this and say, "I’m funny, too, you know. You could have gotten your sense of humor from me." She will not thank me for the pillowy lips comment.

So, thin lips seem to work for dad, especially since he has a mustache and you cannot see them. (I inherited his mustache, too, but fortunately there is Nair, which is another post altogether.) As a girl, though, one does not want no-nonsense lips. Therefore, I have tried everything to puff them up.

And I do mean everything. I have had collagen put into them, which caused an allergic reaction that you do not want to know about. I had liposuction on my double chin (dad again. I saw my wedding pictures, and dad was walking me down the aisle, and there was a pelican walking a smaller pelican down the aisle. I made the lipo appointment immediately) and had the fat put in my lips (oh, yes I did).

Having fat put in your lips is temporary. As opposed to the fat that has mysteriously been put in my abdomen since 1982. That has stayed put.

Finally, I had a Gortex strip put in my upper lip to permanently swell it, and no one can see the difference except me. I cannot stop giggling, however, at the thought of when I am dead, and I will be a skeleton with a strip of Gortex on me for all eternity. Al Gore would be very inconvenienced by this truth.

I am finally over trying to mutilate myself just to have fat lips, but I am not over buying lip-pumping products. I. have. bought. them. all.

I think the first one I tried is DuWop Lip Venom, which sells for $16 at Sephora. It has some sort of spice in it that irritates your mouth, therefore it swells your lips.

Guess what? It actually works. Guess what else? It HURTS SO MUCH! It did not hurt as much as collagen injections, but it was pretty darn close. All you want to do is wipe the stuff off with your hand, but then GUESS WHAT? Your HAND then hurts.

In short, Lip Venom? Ow.

Naturally, then I had to try something even more expensive. This time I bought Fusion Beauty Lip Fusion Color Shine for, yes, $38. For LIP GLOSS. I saw maybe a little lip-plumping action, which was disappointing, but the stuff didn’t hurt like DuWop, and also? It was really, really pretty lip gloss. Really shiny and a nice shade, long-lasting, too! I bought the color "Sweet," which was basically pink, which is basically the color I always buy. I used up the whole tube, which is rare for me.

Since then, I really have tried them all: everything at Sephora to Sally Hansen’s products. And really? Nothing to write home about. Dear Mom, My lips are still thin. Love, June.

Finally, today I went to CVS because I was out of razors. So my gorilla self MEANT to go straight to the razor aisle before I ran into someone I knew, but by magic I was propelled to the lipstick aisle. I bought Cover Girl’s Incredifull Lip Color in shade 940, which is — you guessed it — a kind of pink. It cost me a grand total of $7.49.

Again, it has the spicy feel when you put it on, which I suppose is how all these products work to pump (clap) you up. Like the Lip Fusion, I noticed an oh-so-subtle look. And maybe it’s just me. I want to look like that one Muppet who is just all lips when I use these products. Which one is that? And all I really look like is me. Thin-lipped, Gortexed me.

I do have to say for the record that the color and texture of this lipstick are really great. I like it as a lipstick, and it wasn’t expensive. If someone would hit me in the lips with a pan, I’d be all set.

So. In conclusion, the product that worked best for me was the DuWop, but seriously, get a morphine drip or something, because it stings like a bee.