Gloss me up, baby.

Those of you other there whom I shall place in the highly-coveted and respectable category of “in the know” will no doubt be aware of the most enduring and passionate love affair I have had to date – with the interminable joy of lipgloss, lip balm, lipstick and all other sorts of sticky, sensual ointments one rubs into one’s lips.

I think I can pinpoint the exact beginning of this obsession to one fateful, festive morning in the summer of my second year of high school. The tall brunette with the most enviable set of eyelashes I have ever seen present to me, with a flourish, a neat little six-pack gift set of Chi Chi mini lipgloss pots with absurd names like “Rodeo Babe” and “Bimbo”. (Who knows what kind of dubious glamour these unfortunate products of a marketing team on crack could convey to a fourteen-year-old version of myself, but there it was.) It was purely by chance that she had picked my name out of the Secret Santa hat, and purely by chance that she settled on the frippery of choice on her sojourn to the department store (or to the back of the regifting cupboard, as the case may be), and utter serendipity that she had awoken the dormant instinct of crazed obsession that I am convinced has been lurking within me since I was no more than a twinkle in my mother’s eye. (On another note, I have always found that figure of speech undeniably creepy and not a little disturbing, and shall endeavour never to use it again. But I digress.)

From then on, well, the floodgates opened. Lunch money was sacrificed for the greater cause of impossibly tinted, aggressively glossy lips (because evidently what goes ON the lips is of far greater importance than what goes IN them). The back of my hands became permanently stained with tester patches of tint, gel and colour, like some virulent pink and red rash concentrated solely on the ends of my limbs. The local drugstore (no, not THAT kind of drugstore) became my habitual lurking ground, and I shot death glares at any other hapless teenage girl who ever dared to encroach on the territory I jealously guarded. I grew accustomed to spending countless hours arranging and rearranging my ever-expanding collection by colour, then by size, by scent and by age. Honest to god it was enough to make even a particularly anal obsessive-compulsive implore me to give it up.

And in my defence, I must point out that this gradual process of acquisition was never entirely one-sided, not by any means. It wasn’t long before I became known as “The Lipgloss Girl”, and subsequently became the easiest person ever to by birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa (etc. etc.) presents for. I am proud to say that at one point or another during the course of the last few years I have been in the possession of basically every non-seasonal Body Shop lipgloss or balm that wasn’t green, orange or purple (thank-you darlings, for understanding that at no point in a girl’s life should her lips EVER be fluorescent green).

So maybe it’s been a shallow and essentially fruitless pursuit over all these years. So sue me. I challenge you to justify any of your fourteen-year-old passions (be it Lord of the Rings, Japanese stationery, peddling drugs or whatever the hell fourteen-year-olds get up to these days – yeesh) as any more meaningful, or as a greater source of pleasure to you than my lipgloss collection has been to me.

I used to keep a categorised mental tally of everything I owned until the number exceeded twenty and I finally accepted the fact that I was officially insane. I will declare, though, that of all my little pots, sticks and tubes that have not been tragically misplaced (or as I like to term it, in the transitional stage somewhere between Missing In Action and Rest In Peace), I have never once thrown any of them out. On second thoughts, it is rather disgusting that I would be contemplating using what basically amounts to a seething cesspool of mutating bacteria, that has had up to four years to fester, anywhere near my mouth whereby I will most likely end up ingesting it, but I shall admit that most of my veterans have been held onto out of notalgia, rather than for necessity’s sake. Each lipgloss has a story, and each little soldier represents some very vital (I am positive) time in my life that I will no doubt lose if I get rid of it. The impulse buys, after school with various friends, evoke, like Proust’s bloody madeleine, friendships consolidated over the tedium of public transport, or the gleeful claws-out bitching accompanied by the occasional (but definitely much appreciated) caffeine hit. My Sugar Baby stage, where I fell in love with all things retro and glam (and have been in love with them since), and acquired a baby-pink stick, compact or tube from every one of their lines. Lately, my somewhat sadomasochistic addiction to online shopping, and the adrenaline rush of my very first auction win – a much sought-after Lancôme Juicy Tube whose cut-price origins I shall not question.

It’s not even so much the effect of having lipgloss on that gets me – although lipgloss is the one thing I hold dearer to me than my phone and without which I will never leave the house, I often forget to reapply during the day. It’s the whole delicious process of it all: the careful selection; the scrutinising of two almost identical shades under the glare of fluorescent lighting to decide on the marginally superior model; the sleek, shiny, environment-hating packaging (but so pretty! How can you expect a girl to resist, honestly); the coldness of plastic and pocket-rocket colour; the pervy sensuality of painting one’s lips. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, and if you’ve tried it and hated it – well, all the more for me…

My lipglosses are like my babies – well, babies within whom there is a strict and rarely modifiable order of hierarchy, and some whom I definitely love more than others. (But babies nonetheless. And I suspect that they will remain so, up until the point when I’m 93-years-old, own twelve cats, never brush my hair and foam at the mouth when I speak. Wait, scrap that – is it worrying that at least two of the things on that list already describe who I am?) On the bottom of the ladder are the crazy, organic, eventual bargain-bin fodder that Priceline has taken a chance on, and had failed miserably, and the veterans approaching their period of senility. Somewhere in the middle are the Practicals – the solid, sturdy, easygoing mixes that ain’t no life of the party, but which are probably the nicest to put on and the best for my lips (my Body Shop lip butters fall into this category). On the very top rung at the moment are two gorgeous specimens vying for pole position. In the blue corner, ladies and gentlemen, is the ModelCo confection that was the sole reason I purchased November’s Harper’s Bazaar (and thus cost me a mere third of its retail price) – all sharp, mirrored edges and hidden lights that switch on when the lid is unscrewed (simply pleasures), in a soft, glittery, creamy pink aptly titled “Pink Sea Shell”. In the red corner is the cult favourite Lancôme Juicy Tube, with all the cachet inferred onto it by designer status, in a shiny, translucent, barely-pink shade dubbed “Spring Fling”. Most importantly, the Spring Fling, like all its other Juicy Tube sisters, tastes exactly like strawberry Lifesaver. (I know for a fact that N literally eats hers out of the tube when she has nothing better to do, which is frankly repulsive because the remaining lipgloss shall no doubt come out tasting of week-old spittle.)

For the moment though, I’m happy to let them share first place.

I thought Tuesday was going to be a Juicy Tube day. Panic attack and much tearing out of hair ensued when it was not to be found on Tuesday morning, but alas, it turned out to be less of a Juicy Tube day than anticipated. I am determined, though, that sometime within the next few weeks there WILL be a Juicy Tube day, and that it shall somehow justify not only this particular purchase, but also my entire lipgloss addiction up to this very point.

Watch this space.