The Case for the Fruit Punch Lip Gloss

When it comes to lip glosses, most of my choices belong to two extremes: Nude and Vampy. The nude ones are almost always the color of certain food items - caramels, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg - and often sport a fair amount of shimmer to go along with my skin tone. The vampy ones - which I blame on the original Clinique Black Honey - are on the blackberry/raspberry side of the spectrum, low on shimmer but high on the "hey, it's not too bad if I put it on a little at a time" factor.

So why, then, did I go home from Longs with a 99-cent tube of fruit punch pink lip gloss?

1) It was actually an old shade of Rimmel Vinyl Lip called "Fantastic." Hey, even if this was a 99 cent tube of lip gloss, I still consider Rimmel to be a respectable brand, so I'll snap it up anyway.

2) It's not completely piiiiiiiink pink - it's actually more of a darker fuschia shot through with tons of subtle gold shimmer. I like to think of this more of a "strawberry" pink - more similar to Revlon's Super Lustrous gloss in Cherries in the Glow - and it looks more like something I'd see at a Clinique counter for the summer.

3) Hello, I live in Hawaii. It's always summer over here, even if it does get drafty at 60 degrees Farenheit. Do you think I'd be able to get away with anything dark over here right now?

4) Perhaps it is a Freudian commentary of sorts on my own feelings about living in Hawaii. Maybe I am, on a subconscious level, trying to put on a "happy face" and soldiering on when I should be confronting my own hidden resentment and bitterness.

5) On a more external level, the pink gloss isn't too pigmented; the gold shimmer is quite sheer (read: doesn't look like I coated my mouth in gold leaf); and the product smells like oranges, but not in a non-barfy way. Plus it's non-sticky, non-drying(even if it does feel goopy when I glop it on straight from the tube), lasts pretty long, and practically eliminates my need for extra lip liner underneath by glossing over (hee!) the discolorations on my lips. I look good in this, people, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

In summary: Meimei likey!