Could this be the answer to hot lips?
You'd be hard pressed to find a beuaty blogger who hasn't tried everything under the sun in the hopes of finding a new beauty hack. And time and time again, we thank them for all of their efforts, because some of the tricks they come up with are quite simply, amazing. So, when beauty blogger extraordinaire, Farah Dhukai (the brains behind so many of our new skin care tricks) posted a new, natural lip plumping technique using wasabi, we were excited AF! After all, suction caps just aren't our jam. And with Christmas around the corner, we definitely don't have pockets deep enough to try lip fillers.
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'As you may have noticed, I have very wrinkly lips and its cold AF in Toronto, so now they’re super dry too. Wrinkly + dry = worst combination ever,' she wrote underneath her Instagram post. 'Sooo.. this one trick is a great way to get plump lips that look like you’ve had fillers—they'll be extremely soft, wrinkles will be filled in, they’ll have a natural pink color, and they’ll be so plump [people] will think you’ve had them done.'
Unfortunately, the chemical compounds of wasabi don't have the power to plump your lips like a lip plumping product. Although the tingling sensation feels like it's working wonders, it doesn't have the ability to make them bigger for much longer than a few seconds, minutes if you're lucky. What does happen is that your lips get irritated and swell for a very short amount of time.
Like horseradish, mustard, and other members of the brassica family, wasabi gets its heat from allyl isothiocyanate. Unlike chilli pepper heat, which gets their spiciness from the chemical, capsaicin, wasabi spiciness is short-lived and easy to remedy. In fact, it usually calms down in less than a minute and a glass of water is enough to kick the tingling sensation.
But, that won't necessarily stop us from using wasabi as a great skin care alternative. Apparently it has a variety of healing qualities we never really knew about.
Not only was it originally used by Japanese people to ward off food poisoning because of its antimicrobial properties, it's also packed with Vitamin C, calcium, potassium and phytochemicals that strengthen antioxidants in your body and help your skin fight free radicals. Supposedly, you can even use it as a stimulant on sore muscles to increase circulation and oxygen.
So, we might spice up our life after all. Just in a different way.
