BUY THIS NOW: Sephora Give Me More Lip Ultimate Lip Sampler

As you may remember, I'm currently in the USA on an extended work trip.  Which means, obviously, lots of browsing at Sephora.  I spotted this lip sampler last weekend (it's part of the Sephora Christmas set lineup), and despite owning a million lip products already, had to give in and buy it.  It costs a teeny tiny $59 (or £38ish, if you want it shipped to the UK), and inside are seventeen (SEVENTEEN!) lip products - sixteen mini ones, and one full size.  Oh, and a mini lip brush.

You'll have to excuse the smartphone photos, and the attractive background that is the carpet of my rental apartment, because there was no way in hell I would be waiting til I get home to crack this open and start playing with it.  Sorry (not sorry).

The box folds open to display all seventeen (eighteen including the brush) items, and you have to remove the plastic tray to get them out.  It took me a surprisingly long time to figure this out, after spending a fair few minutes scrabbling under each product with my nails, trying not to damage the packaging.  Should you like reusing things, you'll find that the foldy-outy box is totally reusable as a storage box (for more lipstick, perhaps?) once you've taken the plastic tray out.

OMG, MASSIVE PILE OF LIP PRODUCTS!  At this stage I wanted to roll around in all my new pretties, but I knew that'd ruin both them and the carpet, making me sad (and making my employer sad, as they'd have to pay to have the carpet cleaned).

There are three tinted lip balms included - Fresh Sugar Berry lip treatment, Benefit Posie Balm, and Tarte LipSurgence Lip Tint in Moody.

You get an absolute ton of Fresh Sugar Berry lip treatment - 2.2g.  Compared to the paltry 0.5g Benefit have given us, Benefit look a bit stingy.  The Tarte balm pencil is 1g.

Fresh Sugar Berry Lip Treatment, Benefit Posie Tint, Tarte Lipsurgence Lip Tint in Moody

Out of these three, I'm least impressed with the Benefit Posie Tint - it's very, very neutral (read: barely visible).  I've written about Fresh Sugar lip treatments before, and Berry is just as good as Cherry, which I bought last time I was in the States for a work trip.  The Tarte offering is nice, too - not quite as treatment-y as the Fresh product, but it gives a lovely vampy tint, and the pencil format makes it easy to apply.

Surprisingly, you only get two lipglosses in the set, and they're both pretty neutral.  I guess this is because lipstick has become quite fashionable again, compared to the 90s and 00s, when it was all about the gloss.  Anyway, Stila's Stay All Day Vinyl Lip Gloss in Nude Vinyl weighs in at 1.2ml, and Laura Mercier's Lip Glace in Blush is more generous at 2.8g.  There's also a bonus mini Makeup Forever Aqua Lip waterproof lip pencil, too, in Medium Neutral Beige - it's 0.7g.

Standard doe foot applicators on the glosses.  The pencil is, err, a pencil.  Nothing particularly exciting here.

Stila Stay All Day Vinyl Lip Gloss in Nude Vinyl, Laura Mercier Lip Glace in Blush, Makeup Forever Aqua Lip Pencil in Medium Neutral Beige

I found that the Stila lip gloss is actually closer to a liquid lipstick - there's a ton of pigment in there, and it wears completely opaque on the lips.  The Laura Mercier gloss is a good workhorse neutral gloss, and if you like a lipliner (I only like lipliners on my brows) then this Makeup Forever one is pretty damn budge proof, as I found when I tried to remove the swatch.

There are SIX lipsticks.  SIX!  I love lipstick, so this is good news for me.  Here we have Bite Beauty Luminous Creme Lipstick in Palomino, Buxom Full-Bodied Lipstick in Menace, BareMinerals Marvellous Moxie Lipstick in Speak Your Mind, Laura Mercier Creme Smooth Lip Colour in Red Amour, Too Faced La Creme Colour Drenched Lip Cream in Naked Dolly, and Tarte Lipsurgence Power Pigment in Flush.  Phew.

Sizes are pretty generous, with Laura Mercier's Creme Smooth Lip Colour coming in at 2.5g, Bite Beauty's Luminous Creme Lipstick coming in at 2g, BareMinerals and Too Faced at 1.5g, Buxom at 1.3g and Tarte at 1g.  None of them products feel undersized, and despite being all cute and tiny, they're still shaped well enough to apply easily to the lips.

Bite Beauty Luminous Creme Lipstick in Palomino, Buxom Full-Bodied Lipstick in Menace, BareMinerals Marvellous Moxie Lipstick in Speak Your Mind, Laura Mercier Creme Smooth Lip Colour in Red Amour, Too Faced La Creme Colour Drenched Lip Cream in Naked Dolly, and Tarte Lipsurgence Power Pigment in Flush

There's a pretty good range of shades here, from the super neutral Too Faced, to the deep berry toned Buxom.  I was pleased to see that all the shades run fairly neutral in tone, making them pretty universally workable for most skintones.  I've already written about BareMinerals' Marvellous Moxie lipsticks - and actually bought Speak Your Mind a while ago - and I'm glad to see one of these rather excellent lipsticks included in this set.  Bite Beauty and Buxom are both less well known in the UK, and both lipsticks feel creamy and apply with great pigmentation.  Bite's Palomino is a hell of a shade.

And finally, on to the FIVE liquid lipsticks included in the set: Kat Von D's Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Outlaw, Sephora Rouge Infusion in Red Essence, Too Faced Melted Lipstick in Fuchsia, OCC Lip Tar Matte in Black Dahlia, and Hourglass Opaque Rouge Liquid Lipstick in Icon.

Lots of sponge tips going on there, as well as the simple tube packaging of OCC Lip Tar.  Some of these are also pretty generously sized:  Kat Von D gives us 3ml, Sephora 2ml, Too Faced a whopping 5ml, OCC 2.5ml, and Hourglass 1ml.

Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Outlaw, Sephora Rouge Infusion in Red Essence, Too Faced Melted Lipstick in Fuchsia, OCC Lip Tar Matte in Black Dahlia, and Hourglass Opaque Rouge Liquid Lipstick in Icon

If you're hankering after trying out that super-matte liquid lip, Kat Von D's Everlasting Liquid Lipstick is pretty amazing - it almost glows, and dries incredibly matte.  Of this set, only Sephora's Rouge Infusion seems the slightest bit sheer, but given the lovely garnet shade and the fact that the rest of the liquid lipsticks are intense as anything, I think we can forgive it.  I'm particularly loving the rich ruby shade of Hourglass Opaque Rouge in Icon, and Black Dahlia from OCC is something a little bit different to the jewel tone reds and pinks.

So, that's the contents of the Ultimate Lip Sampler, and ultimate it is - for $59/£38ish, you get plenty of lip shades to experiment with, and let's face it - who ever finishes a lipstick anyway?  Surely the answer is having more little ones.  Yes.  Find it now at the Sephora website (you can even get it shipped to the UK and be sure not to get stung on import duty).

Disclosure:  Purchased with my own money, about five seconds after I spotted it.

This post originated at www.londonbeautyreview.com. If you're reading it elsewhere, it's been stolen, violating my copyright.