LipSense. The must have product du jour. I have been invited to multiple LipSense parties over the past several months. I was always intrigued, but for some reason, not quite ready to take the plunge.

Honestly, despite some half assed attempts, I have never been much of a lip product girl. All the lipstick I own was a pressure purchase after having my makeup professionally done for a wedding or our annual family photography session. I always justified the purchase with the notion that I might need to reapply later. Basically, you can count the number of lipsticks I own on one hand. Lip gloss always seemed like something I wanted. In theory. I would grab a pretty, sparkly tube at the grocery store, only to hate it as soon as I put it on and my hair was stuck in it. To the bottom of the purse it would go. So lips have been au natural most of my life.

Over the last few years, however, I have been a hard core Younique girl. Pretty much my entire makeup bag is Younique products. I decided to try their lip gloss early on, and much to my surprise, I LOVE it. For the first time in my life, I had shiny, sparkly, colorful lips! I have tubes in my car, in my purse, at my desk. It’s not sticky and there is a mirror on the tube. Sold.

So perhaps it was my love affair with Younique that made me pause about trying a new brand on my lips. But when my friend (and photography and LLR client) Kate signed on as a LipSense consultant, I knew my time to jump off the fence had come. And jump I did. Head first into a pool of pretty lip color.

LipSense is the headliner product for makeup and skincare company, SeneGence. It isn’t a lipstick or even a lip stain. It is like this crazy, magic lip color. And the claim is that it is actually good for your lips! Like most commercial products, most of the stuff we put on our lips is made up of fillers and waxes and all around crap to give us the illusion that our [insert body part] are soft and supple. In reality, we just have a whole lotta buildup. So the first few weeks of using LipSense exfoliates and sheds all the crap off your lips, while the moisturizing Glossy Gloss does its thing. I must say after about 3 weeks of using LipSense, my lips do, somehow seem different.

I bought the Starter Collection to see what all the hype was about. The Starter Collection includes an Oops! Remover, a color of your choice (I picked a pretty neutral, Praline Rose) and a Gloss (I picked Glossy Gloss).

I was a bit skeptical with the first application. It is different than just slapping on some gloss and going. I did as the instructions provided by my Lip Lady said, cleaning my lips first with the Oops! Remover. Then I applied the first layer of Praline Rose. It stung. It felt weird and when I let my lips touch in the slightest, they sort of stuck together. But. I forged ahead. Layer two stung less, but I still couldn’t let my lips touch resulting in the strangest of faces. Layer three, ohhhh, this is pretty! Shit. Don’t let your lips touch. Once I thought the color was dry, I put on the Glossy Gloss and was able to let my lips touch, smack, eat, suck (a STRAW! Get your mind outta the gutter), ANYTHING! And the color stayed put! The color was gorgeous, and,by the end of the day, still there!

Of course, I immediately needed more. Like, give me all the colors! And glosses! Glossy Gloss is not the only option. MATTE GLOSS. Need I say more?! It’s freaking amazing. Here is perhaps my favorite color, Sheer Berry, with both Matte and Glossy Gloss.

Ordering LipSense is a little more than just going to a site and finding your dream color. Most consultants seem to carry inventory in hand, and purchasing directly from them seems to be the method of choice. With the brand popularity growing like a wild fire, many of the colors are out of stock almost as soon as they are restocked. I have heard that consultants have the option of web ordering, but I have not experienced purchasing that way yet. I did peruse SeneGence’s website at one point, trying to see different colors but it is not what I consider user friendly and I gave up quickly. Regardless, the urgency arises when you see your girl has a color you have been crushing on to get it before it’s gone. Sound familiar?

My collection has grown to 2 glosses and 5 colors: Praline Rose, Pomegranate, Blu Red (my first Color of the Month surprise!), Sheer Berry and Kiss for a Cause (OBSESSED).

And as if this isn’t all amazing enough, you can create different colors with COCKTAILS! You always need 3 layers of color. The first layer primes your lip. The second is the star of the show all day and the third takes the beating of whatever your day throws at you. So you can do 3 layers of one color, or start mixing it up! Simply put. 2 colors will yield you 8 different looks. Here is my Blu Red-Praline Rose-Praline Rose cocktail! For reference, the second picture is what 3 layers of Blu Red looks like on me! Seriously, look at the difference!

CONCLUSION!!! LipSense – Go Buy It or Pass By It? I am giving it a FIRM GO BUY IT! Like. Right. Now. I have been overall impressed by this product, and NEED more. Most days, I get all day coverage. In fact, most mornings (because I terrible about washing my face at night) I wake up and still have color on my lips! I do usually try to reapply my gloss a couple of times a day to help protect and prolong the color because I have noticed that if I don’t, the color doesn’t last quite as long. But seriously, what other product is going to give you even 4-6 hours of color without any re-application? …… Exactly.

Go now. Find a friend who sells. And if by some miracle nobody in your friend list is a Lip Lady, shoot me a message and I will connect you with my girl. Cause, yeah, I’ve got a girl.