I'm a Sucker for Plumpers

I'm not sure whether it's true that Lip Venom was the original lipgloss that started the plumper craze, but Lip Venom was the first one I was interested in. It smelled like cinnamon (it contains ginger, cinnamon and wintergreen oils) and felt hot on the lips for a few minutes, and had a nice shiny glossiness to it, but it didn't work as a plumper for me.


Most recently I tried Mac Cosmetics' "Plushglass," which tingles a bit and smells oddly medicinal, like synthetic vanilla and Ben Gay mixed together. It's just okay.

I'm really into the tingle, like the feeling in your mouth and on your lips when you've eaten chile pepper or some spicy food.
A friend of my friend works at Sephora and advised me that Too Faced's Lip Injection Extreme is the most tingly of them all.
I haven't tried it, though, partly because I don't like the "injection" part of the product name. That's just so unromantic. It's not fun, it's not playful, it's MEDICAL. I don't want a lip injection... if I did, I'd go get Restylane injected... I just want something fun.

Instead, I tried LipFusion. My neighborhood Sephora SalesFella informed me that LipFusion is sold with the skin care products rather than with the makeup because it's the only plumper that contains collagen. Thankfully, it's vegan collagen (from seaweed) rather than animal collagen, and supposedly it's miscrosopic enough to penetrate the lips and then suck up the water in your cells, thus inflating each collagen sphere like a little water balloon. I realize this sounds like something only a total airhead would believe, and I was skeptical, however SalesFella won me over by looking at my lips and informing me, "You don't need it, though. You totally don't." Reverse psychology!!! I didn't buy that day, but I went back a few days later and did. I got the clear gloss first. It's extremely sticky, imparts an extremely glassy shine, and sticks to your lips (and any wayward strands of hair) like glue. It smells like grapefruit, which is nice. It tingles just a little; more than that, it creates a slightly heightened awareness, like when your foot falls asleep and then it starts to wake up. I swear, it really plumps. It's possible that the extreme thickness just creates a plump-looking effect... but the lips really do look more plump a few minutes after applying the goo.

After dropping $36 on the first tube, I checked out Ebay and got the pink for less than half that price. The pink gives a really pretty, natural soft color. Yay. Next I'm going to check out the LipFusion liner pencils. Stay tuned!