collections | on my lips

When we bought our house 3 1/2 years ago, I embraced the move as an opportunity to get rid of crap and purge my possessions. One of my collections that needed simplifying? Cosmetics.

I consider myself a fairly middle-maintenance kind of girl. I want to look nice, but I don't want to put a lot of effort into it. Mascara and lip gloss? Yes. An hour of my life wasted on blow drying my hair? No!

I'm a wash-and-go kind of girl now, but in my early twenties, I was a new college graduate with an office job in a big city and I thought my unruly curls were unprofessional. I wasted hours of my life heat damaging my hair with a blow dryer and a flat iron. (And guess what, my hair still didn't behave!) I was always on the lookout for the newest potion that promised perfect skin or the glossy straight hair of a Pantene commercial. I amassed quite a collection of drug store products that did not do what they said they would. Wop wah! Sucker!

By the time we moved, I realized lipstick made me look like a clown, foundation never matched my skin tone quite right, and straightening gels/mousses/sprays/balms/conditioners/cremes/milks/serums (yes, I tried them all!) never made my hair straight. I reached for the same limited collection of cosmetics every morning while the rest dried up and expired. Plus, I didn't have time for an elaborate face-putting-on routine - I much prefer to sleep in!

The move was the perfect excuse to pitch the duds and simplify my cosmetics routine.

However, I recently found a bin full of cosmetics that did make it through the pre-move purge (and have been sitting in storage since then!) and when I gathered these up along with the products that I still use, I came to a realization...

I have a minor addiction to lip balm and lip gloss.

I blame my mother.

When I was a kid, we used to tease her for her obsession with Chapstick. Before we left the house, she would always come running after us and try to smear Chapstick on our lips.

(I really have no problem with Chapstick, I just didn't like having it forcefully applied.)

By the time I was a teenager, I couldn't go anywhere without a tube of strawberry Chapstick in my pocket. (I guess Mom's plan worked!) At the beach, I apply SPF Chapstick every ten seconds because my lips get sunburned so easily. (Is there anything more painful?)

I've since graduated from Chapstick brand lip balm, and now use homemade/organic balms that I buy on Etsy. And over the past five years, I've tried dozens of lip balms from dozens of Etsy sellers. I consider myself a lip balm expert. It must be super smooth and smell really good to win my seal of approval. Nothing waxy, nothing that smells like perfume or soap, and nothing that dries up or gets lumpy.

The absolute best balms on Etsy are mmmMango and Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry by Bathing in Luxury.

(I also like the Gooey Caramel, which I got as a freebie from LipLove. I don't actually like caramel, but I love the taste of this delicious lip balm.)

I also must have at least two Cover Girl Wetslicks glosses within arm's reach at all times. I like Wetslicks Lip Gloss* in Wine Shine and Iced Berry and Wetslicks Fruit Spritzers in Plum Splash.

* I cannot find a link for Wetslicks Lip Gloss on the Cover Girl webpage...does this mean it's been discontinued? The only lipgloss I wear? NOOOOOOOOO. (Perhaps time for a desperate trip to all my local drugstores? Let the hoarding resume!)

As for the rest of the products - the bottom two rows in the top photo are products I found in storage and are most likely obsolete. Evidently, I used to actually wear lipstick AND lip liner. (And Bonne Bell Lip Burst, which apparently degrades into a disgusting shade of urine-yellow if left packed in a box for many years. It's now in the trash. I'm fairly certain I haven't purchased a Bonne Bell product in over ten years - though I did love those Lip Smackers when I was a teenager - tell me I'm not the only one? Also, it looks like I have owned every shade and model of Cover Girl Lip Slicks since 1995.)

In conclusion, yes, I do own over 70 lip products, and the only ones I use are Etsy lip balms and Cover Girl lip gloss. Huh.

Aaaaand I can't believe I just wrote 800 words about lip gloss.

P.S. When I told Larry I thought I might be addicted to lip balm, he said "You're just now noticing this?" An hour later, he e-mailed me a link to beer-flavored lip balm.

P.P.S. After I took the photos, I found half a dozen more lip balms.