Everyone loves puffy lips! Whether a person is unconsciously into the cross-symbolism of the female lips and female genitalia, or they are just turned on by the violence-suggestive aspect of “trout pout,” people love PUFFY CHIC!

Even superstar Jessica Simpson (see figure one, above) has jumped on this bandwagon in the wake of her failed marriage to what appears to be a gay Ken Doll.

What is this Puffy Chic all about? We at the offices of I, Asshole wished to find out. I can’t afford the $300-$5000 it costs to enhance one’s lips via surgery, so I decided to go the drug store route.

On impulse a few weeks ago, I purchased a tube of Sally Hansen brand “Lip Inflation.” Lip Inflation is one of many brands of lip gloss that purports to make your lips swell in a manner that is supposed to be attractive, because of ingredients that are irritating such as highly-concentrated pepper, cinnamon, or mint extracts. Sounds great, doesn’t it? I read about DuWop Lip Venom a few years ago and was intrigued by it, though not by the price. However, Sally Hanson offers Lip Inflation for around $6, so that was an impulse purchase I could justify. Of course, I immediately made my sister Morgan promise to test it scientifically later.

Later came during the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which aired shortly before xmas. There’s nothing like winged, lingerie-clad women saying vapid things in broken English (talking to you, Tyrant Banks) to get you in a scientific frame of mind. So we decided to test it then. To be extra-scientifical, we put the Lip Inflation on one side of our lips (left), and a high-shine but inert gloss on the other, so we wouldn’t be fooled into thinking our lips were plumper based on shininess alone. We also drew lines down the center with laboratory-approved eyeliner to make sure the spicy gloss wouldn’t eat its caustic way over to the control side.

For the record, my sister and I don’t believe our lips need plumping through a gloss or other forms of plastic surgery. If we want to be seductively puffy, we just punch each other before going out.

First, we took non-glossy pictures of ourselves before the test began. Here we are in boring, non-swollen mode.

Here we are applying the gloss. We decided, scientifically, to let our lips sit, watch Heidi Klum prance around, and then to check the results during the next commercial break.

An unexpected result of this project was that I realized I look like a Skeksis from the side, and no one has ever told me this. Thanks a lot, EVERYONE. From now on, I will only be appearing from the front. The upside of this is that now I have carte blanche to drain the Podlings of their lifeforces.

But I digress. Here we are, back in reality in Morgan’s bathroom, ready for plumping.

After the Klum-prancing and sufficient plumping has taken place, we headed back to the bathroom. The burning wasn’t unbearable–I have certainly had worse times in Thai restaurants–but it wasn’t great, either. I could tell that Morgan’s left side, the testing side, had swollen slightly. She confirmed this, saying that her left side felt tighter. I experienced tightness and irritation as well, but my visible results weren’t nearly as noticeable as Morgan’s, which is not saying much at all.

From what I have read, Sally Hansen’s Lip Inflation uses various mints as its main irritant ingredient, while other products use cinnamon or pepper. I am not willing to pay $16-$40 to find out if other irritants are more effective. Here is what others have to say about Lip Inflation at the back fence of drug store cosmetic chicanery.

For now, I think the magnifying effects of a regular clear gloss, with no burning, is preferable. Or Morgan and I could go back to punching each other, for that retro Fight Club chic-effect.

More Experiemento here.