Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and been greeted by a red face, bloodshot eyes, trickling nose goo and a sweaty reflection frantically looking for ice cubes and tissues? Do you ever find yourself thinking, “How did we end up here?” Well that was me last week.
I’m seated in my bathroom, Facetiming a friend with a tub of wasabi and cayenne pepper in my hand. “Are you seriously going to apply that?” she half shrieks in horror. She thinks I’ve finally lost it. “Yes,” I tell her coolly. “It’s totally fine It’s a new wellness thing — in fact I think even Gwyneth Paltrow does this.” For the record, I checked… and she doesn’t. “Dude that just sounds painful, I’m not going to be around for this,” she logs off so quickly that I wonder if she’ll ever come back. (No really, if you’re reading this — call me back!!!)
Our generation has long been obsessed with plump lips; but somewhere along the line, we lost ourselves. We found household products to do the job for us, because we weren’t able to commit to botox, and also — why spend money on something you can (apparently) easily DIY? Those of you who know me and follow my work have probably realised that I will try anything once, (which is both a boon and a bane) and this time I tried an olive oil, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and wasabi lip plumper — so you don’t have to! No seriously, you don’t have to do this.
I particularly enjoy cinnamon on my doughnuts, wasabi on my sushi, and cayenne peppers literally nowhere; but I read about how lip plumpers work by basically irritating your lips so the blood rushes there and makes them look fuller. Sort of makes sense… but let me tell you this straight up: applying this potent gunk is not easy. It’s not exactly creamy or spreadable. I applied a small amount with a brush and just pushed it around my lips. There were also a few chunks (how?); and I ate those because they wouldn’t stay on my lips.
When I was satisfied with the amount on my lips, I just sat around for a while, and tried not to lick it off. I also tried not to lick off the paste that was on the inside of my lips but failed. You know the thing about this paste? It’s the sort of spice that goes through your nose and makes you weep for dear life if you eat or smell too much of it. I took it off after roughly a minute because my nose and eyes started to tear up — surprisingly it didn’t hurt my lips at all.
You know what else it didn’t do? Any plumping whatsoever. Sure my lips might have swollen a little, but my patchy appliance resulted in uneven swelling. Also, the rest of my face was a tragic red mess so that was definitely not cute. My justification for this botched up experiment? Sure, botox might be more effective, but stuff from the kitchen is free when you still live with your folks!!! Don’t try this at home, kids.
Saumya Chawla
Twitter@meoowbox
The writer loves to over-share, drink wine & watch period dramas