The Lipstick Question: Have you ever finished a lipstick?

Lipsticks, something about them encourages me to pick them up regardless of if I need them or not. Colourful, dinky and instantly transformative- lipsticks are my collectibles, a new addition is always welcome and they're displayed rather than stored. Whilst taking stock of my ever increasing collection this interest of mine (read: obsession) led me into a rather introspective mood. After penning the post that went up yesterday I suddenly realised that I have never finished a lipstick, I've never even come close! I definitely favour variety and enjoy picking out a different colour every day, one which matches my mood or my outfit. If I'm totally honest, I tend to wear more than one a day, changing my lip colour as soon as the evening draws in as an excuse to play around with two colours a day instead of one. At first I was curious as to whether it was just me who did this, whether I was missing out on "the perfect lipstick" - because if everyone else is wearing the same lipstick day-in day-out then I must surely be missing out on something. So I turned my question to the beauty blogging community on twitter:

The response was widespread and it was fascinating, I've included screen shots of the varied responses below:

The majority of the responses stated that people hadn't ever finished a lipstick, and the lipsticks people had finished tended to be glossy (eg. see below- Beehive is a Mirror Shine Lipstick,  a glossy Clarins Lipstick, a glossy No.7 lipstick etc.) which suggests they were used up due to the formula (glossy textures tend to not last long which means they require multiple reapplications throughout the day). @Lismd was the only person to reply saying that they used one up because they liked to wear it everyday and @MissMelissa_D was the only person to have finished the same lipstick twice!

Why is it so rare to have just one or two lipsticks to wear over and over until they're all used up? I personally think that it has everything to do with an overwhelmingly abundant variety of choices. Walk into any drugstore, department store and now even clothes shops (Topshop, I'm looking at you) and there is make-up everywhere, in every conceivable shade. I for one am guilty of being incapable of deciding between two shades when I go shopping and instead of making a hard decision I usually end up buying both. Instantly this means that I have one lipstick too many for my lips, and if I do this regularly (which I have to admit that I do) then this abundance of variety present in shops follows me home and presents itself in my own make-up collection. And I'm not alone in this:

My overall impression is that the spirit of the times is concerned with a sense of abundance, variety and choice. I for one revel in having options but it does draw attention to some problems. Lipsticks have so much product in them, I had a quick browse through my collection and the average amount of product per lipstick is about 4g. This seems like quite a lot to me, I would be happy with a quarter of the amount of product coupled with the price of lipsticks reducing. If women like to experiment with colours and if the majority of us don't finish products then why don't retailers take this into consideration. There are lots of benefits to reduced lipstick sizes; they'd instantly become more portable (every inch of spare space in my bag is important), they'd become more affordable allowing us to experiment even more, the reduction in price would open up the market to people who might have previously been put off by the cost of investing so much in one product and, just as importantly, they'd produce less wastage. If there was an option to buy dinkier, half-size/quarter size products then I would be all over them - the cute factor alone would be immeasurably appealing - and if they were only an option (eg. normal lipstick sizes were still purchasable) then if you found your perfect shade then you could still stock up. I know not everyone will agree with me but I hope you found this post interesting!

I'd love to know your thoughts on this, do you like the sound of half-sized lipsticks? Or do they not appeal to you? I'd especially love to know if you have ever finished a lipstick yourself?

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