I remember the first lip plumper I ever bought, back when they were a pretty new concept. It was Duwop’s Lip Venom and I bought it on my first trip to Harvey Nichol’s in Edinburgh.

A small little tube of gloss which hurt like pin pricks when I liberally applied it to my smacker, and gave me a deadly, bee stung pout. I had a love hate relationship with that vial of tingly product, it hurt like hell but made my meagre lips bloom with a deep pink flush and swell into an ample size.

Lip Venom uses spices, such as cinnamon, to promote circulation and bestow a full pout but there are now a myriad of lip plumpers on the market which maximise pouting potential in more ways than one. We take a look at three top-notch lip amplifiers.

Too Faced Lip Injection
Ouch! Lip Injection is right, this lip plumping lacquer has quite a bite and you could be forgiven for thinking you had just undergone the needle. Paris Hilton and Cher both use this lip tingling treatment to make the most of their mouths. Vitamin E and a bunch of circulation stimulants increase blood flow and fill up your kiss-giver. The effects start immediately, building up over the first five minutes of prickly put plumping and lasting for a good few hours. Sadly, the outside edge of the lip also gets affected and turns a blotchy pink for the good part of an hour.

The Verdict: 3/5. It speedily turns scrawny lips super-sized, but the ouch factor is too much for my sensitive skin.

Dermaquest C-Lipoic Lip Enhancer
On first application this lip lifter took me a little by surprise. I was expecting the usual culprit; a syrupy and thick gloss. Instead I found my lips were laced with a fine sheen of moisturising and slippery salve. Not quite a lip gloss, definitely not a waxy balm… but somewhere in between. My first impressions of the lip enhancer were not great, the familiar stinging lips which I am so used to, and make me feel like I can tell my lips are growing by the second, was replaced by a very faint tingling sensation.