When walking into any higher- scale makeup or retail store that carries higher-scale makeup products, it’s a common consensus that their prices can be shocking. 

However, some of the prices for lip balms, lip liners, and lip glosses go beyond shocking; it’s almost offensive. 

The truth of the matter is, as the years pass by, prices fluctuate due to supply and demand. However with certain makeup products, especially lip products, prices have risen astronomically. 

Part of this is due to branding, luxury products are always going to cost more than a drugstore brand, and obviously people can decide which one they prefer regarding the price point. 

However, specifically with lip products in luxury stores, the price point for a sub-par product is astronomical, with a small 0.38 ounce lip balm retailing for sixteen dollars. 

Even though this may seem ridiculous (rightfully so), this price point isn’t even one of the highest on the luxury makeup market.  

Summer Friday’s Lip Butter Balm retails for twenty five dollars, along with the Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask. The Gisou Hydrating Lip Oil retails for twenty eight, the Dior Lip Oil for forty dollars, the Sarah Creal for forty two dollars, and the Hourglass Phantom Gloss Balm for thirty eight dollars. 

“The prices are honestly ridiculous, especially for some of the brands that aren’t even identifiable designer/luxury brands” says senior Aryam Agili- Shaban. 

One would think, since these products are so expensive and not inherently better than cheaper drugstore brands, people would stick to the inexpensive products. 

Not really. 

Even though these lip products are priced ridiculously, it seems like people justify purchasing them for their perceived “higher quality”, but this reason is not only based on little evidence but is also obviously untrue. 

The truth is, there is an inexplicable joy that comes from buying a ridiculously expensive yet adorable lip product, a joy that can’t be quantified accurately or given a justifiable explanation to. 

“There’s just something about a new lip gloss that just makes you happy. It’s almost like you feel more put together somehow” says sophomore Whitney Osbourne. 

It’s the kind of joy that makes no logical sense—like paying extra for guacamole when you know it should’ve been included with your meal, or buying an experimental item of clothing that you know will just collect dust in the back of your closet; entirely illogical but completely exciting. 

 There’s just something about holding a tiny, overpriced tube of lip balm in your hand that makes you feel like you’ve unlocked some secret level of sophistication, as if the mere act of applying it elevates your entire existence.

Maybe it’s the weight of the packaging, the subtle click of the magnetic lid, or the sheer fact that your lips are now coated in something that costs more per ounce than a decent steak dinner. Maybe it’s a placebo effect. Maybe (definitely) it’s capitalism at its peak performance.

But at the end of the day, as you search around in your bag, searching for that $40 Dior lip oil you swore you put in the side pocket (only to find it later, melted, open and leaking onto all your possessions), you come to a realization: 

Was it worth it? 

Absolutely not.

 Would you do it again? 

Without a doubt.