Abigail M. Schilling

Last night Carolyn, Kathy, and I sat in the bathroom for no less than thirty minutes staring at ourselves. We left only once and that was to ask Cate (who was writing a Spanish paper and therefore could not join us in the bathroom) if she thought our lips looked any bigger.

Last night, I bought Wexler's No Injection Lip Plumper because it was on sale and because I was very curious. Not curious enough to try it myself--I forced Carolyn and Kathy to put it on first.

"Does it hurt? What does it feel like? I think your lips are bigger."

It did hurt, kinda. I mean, it was like this annoying tingling feeling that never really faded. The lady had warned us about the feeling. She said it was like when your leg falls asleep but "not the really bad kind." I'm sorry, but every time my leg falls asleep (which is increasingly more often with the mounting Mario Kart addiction) it is the really bad kind. Whatever, lady, it hurts.

And mostly, it was this total and utter awareness of my lips. Like they were leading my body and everything else was following. Here they are, World, My Lips.

And we couldn't stop. We would look at our own, we would look at each other's, we would look at the "before" pictures. And we really couldn't figure out if they were bigger or if it was a placebo effect.

The science behind the product is, afterall, based on "moisture-activated plumping spheres." What the hell is a plumping sphere? While still not sure, you can definitely feel them (it?).

And I swear it makes a difference. Carolyn's lips were probably the most confusing to me. They looked huge, but when I looked at the before picture I couldn't see a difference. But that could be because the angle or the lighting of the picture. And with all the gloss factor everything looks different anyway.

Kathy's were obviously bigger when she smiled wide but normal looking when she was rolling her eyes at me. This was totally deceiving? Were they or weren't they bigger?

Mine? Well, they didn't so much come as a set. My bottom lip plumped right up and out with those spheres and my top lip shrank into oblivion. Seriously, you couldn't even see my upper lip.

All the while we were wondering whether we were making all these differences up. And we couldn't hold a conversation not about the lips. Everything came back to one of three lines:

"I can still feel it!"

"Do my lips look bigger?"

and

"I really think yours look bigger."

I opted not to try it this morning, I figured all the curiousity might get in the way of my productivity (unfortunately my job doesn't involved standing in front of a mirror for 30 minutes). However, when I was leaving for work Kathy definitely mentioned that my lips look bigger.

So, if you see us, encourage the placebo effect (and the plumping spheres) and compliment our lips.