Plump pout deserves more than lip service
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, August 9, 2005

I can't believe how clueless I was in junior high school. I sincerely believed that thin Cheryl Tiegs lips were all that stood between me and total happiness. Now, as a mature, wise adult, I can see how silly that was.

Plumper lips - that's where true happiness lies.

Or so I've come to believe after reading a newspaper story about how big, bee-stung, Scarlett Johansson lips are the hottest things since supersized breasts. And the good news is that they're not just for the injection crowd anymore. Now even chickens can have good lips - or at least the hope of good lips - with over-the-counter lip volumizers.

For less than 10 bucks your lips can look like you just got punched in the mouth, or like you put too many hot pepper flakes on your pizza.

I put down my newspaper and pinched my lips. And not in a giddy ``I better pinch myself to make sure this is real,'' way, either. It was more of a desperate, instant-gratification, nonsurgical bid to make them look fuller.

``How do my lips look?'' I asked the nearest person I could find. ``I don't know,'' she said. ``The same?''

I pursed them in the so-called ``trout pout'' pose.

She looked at me and then at my desk. ``What are you doing over there?''

At the moment, counting the hours until I could rush from work to buy myself some Du Wop Lip Venom or Too Faced Lip Injection. With the right product, I'd look like Angelina Jolie, I just know it! I'd be an international star, adopting tots right and left, addressing the Davos audience, cavorting with Brad Pitt. What I couldn't do with bigger lips!

Eager to get started on my new life, I called a good friend, a woman who knows her Restylane from her collagen from her Botox, and asked her if she wanted to get some Lip Injection after work

``A lip injection?'' she said. ``Are you kidding?''

Me?

She's the one who should be kidding, not knowing about these new life-changing products. Incredibly, she wasn't even worried about her lips (and I don't want to say anything, but . . . ).

``It's getting so hard to keep up,'' she said when I informed her that when it comes to sex appeal, lips are the new tush: the more the better. ``I wish I were like a Tootsie Roll and they could just squeeze it up from my legs,'' she said.

I suggested she not hold her breath. It does horrible things to the upper lip area.