Does Huge Lips Skinny Hips lip gloss really work?

Skylighthope asks… I recently came upon this product and was very curious about whether or not it works. The product is called Huge Lips Skinny Hips Lip Gloss and serves two purposes…a lip plumper, and also as an appetite suppressant through the ingredient hoodia. Does this product actually work, and is it safe? =)

Left Brain gets lippy…

Some people think I’m a little too cynical, but that is just wrong. I love the idea of products like this! It’s a novel and creative idea that could really change the face of cosmetics if it actually worked. Imagine a lipstick that looked good and helped you lose weight. But sigh, it looks like they’ve put out the marketing hype before all the science was worked out.

Will “Huge Lips Skinny Hips” plump lips?

As we saw in this previous Beauty Brains about lip plumpers, there are only two kinds that actually work.

Type A: A moisturizing lipstick that smoothes out wrinkles and makes lips look moist (pretty much any lipstick).

Type B: A product containing an irritant like menthoxypropanediol that actually irritates lips and causes a inflammation response.

Neither will be permanent but your lips will look more plump.

The Huge Lips Skinny Hips product is more like a Type A product relying on a moisturizing ingredient like Meadowfoam emollient. But it also contains Lemonpeel oil that can be irritating like menthoxypropanediol products.

Will Hoodia suppress your appetite?

The makers of Huge Lips Skinny Hips have included some Hoodia extract in the formula implying that it will have an appetite suppressing effect. While there have been some preliminary studies that showed Hoodia has this effect, the conclusion is tenuous at best. Hoodia has never been proven to help people lose weight. Plus, the amount of hoodia you’ll get from this product is so minimal, it’s negligible.

A better idea would’ve been to consult the folks over at the Smell and Taste Institute and incorporate some of their tastant crystals. That’s not to say it would work either but at least there would be some science to back up the claims.

To Purplelab’s credit they admit that the Hoodia probably isn’t going to get you to stop eating. They just figure it can’t hurt. And the truth is, they are probably right. The small amount you might ingest will not have an effect one way or another.

How much lipstick do you eat?

There was one interesting claim at their website that said “women ingest up to 9 lbs of lipstick in their lifetime.” I tried to track down the source of this number, but couldn’t find anything definitive. This seems rather high to me. If that were true, that means you would use about 288 tubes of lipstick. Another common claim is 4 to 6 lbs which still means you would eat at least 128 tubes in your lifetime.

I looked up some ingestion data on Pubmed and found that on average women use 10 mg of lipstick per application.

So…

Assuming 4 applications per day

Every day of her life

For 70 years

That means she will ingest 2.2 lbs of lipstick in a lifetime. (This also assumes that everything applied gets ingested which we know is not true based on the amount of lipstick left on wine glasses).

2.2 lbs of lipstick in a lifetime

Beauty Brains bottom line

Since Huge Lips Skinny Hips uses ingredients that are listed in the INCI dictionary (the cosmetic industry standard book) it’s safe to say that this product is safe. It is also probably effective for producing plump lips for a short time anyway. But don’t expect you hips to get any skinnier. The weight loss claims are dubious at best.

How many tubes of lipstick or lip gloss do you use in a year? Leave a comment and let the other Beauty Brains community members know.