On a recent trip to Toronto, in between seeing friends and sightseeing from the top of the CN Tower (travel post to come), I dragged my amazing travel companion off to the newly-opened Bite Beauty Lip Lab on Queen Street. To say that this was a trip I had wanted to take for a long time is such an understatement.

Inside is a lipstick (and Instagram) addict’s dream. It’s a large, open space, composed of primarily white and neutral tones, and decorated almost solely with Bite brand art and slogans.

We were greeted by a nice man in hot pink lipstick, who told me that Emily would take care of everything that I needed. Emily and I ended up being together for around 45 minutes. Together, we decided that I wanted two lipsticks, one being an everyday shade, and the other being more of a trend-forward statement piece.

Emily first took me through the prep routine, scrubbing my lips with what is the most amazing cherry lip scrub, followed by a lip mask, and then finally a lip primer. I really appreciated being able to try out some of these products, because it’s really unlikely that I would have bought them on my own…just knowing my own personality.

At this point, I got a glass of wine and some cookies (Charles too), and began the lipstick search. Emily thought that for my needs, the finish that I would prefer would most likely be the Amuse Bouche (as opposed to Crème or Matte, both of which are also options). Then it was time to pull out shades.

This was definitely the longest part. Pull out a sample of pigment, mix it up, and try it on. Discuss with Charles. Rinse, repeat. As a lipstick collector, I wanted something different from my usual. This ended up taking forever. Emily carefully mixing the different pigments on a sheet of acetate before handing them off to me to try. Over, and over, and over. After we finished one, the second one went much quicker. I was looking for something that made a statement, and was unique to me. I tried on greens, blues, reds, of many shades. Charles vetoed the green pretty hard. Finally, we settled on a brown-orange-red. It’s different from my other reds, but totally within my normal.

After this, I had to choose scents for my lipsticks. For my more muted lipstick, I went with more muted scents, picking coconut and vanilla. But for my red, I wanted something vibrant, so I went with a citrus mint.

My chosen scents were added to sticks of pure pigment, but in a centrifuge to blend, and then chilled in a mold on an ice block. 10 minutes later, my lipsticks were done and packaged up for me.

I think that what I liked the most was that this gave me the opportunity to decide what shades I thought would look good, and how they actually performed. Trying on five shades of red, and talking about the subtle differences is really eye-opening. I also liked that I could try things that were out of the box for me, like green and blue, without committing.

Was this a splurge? Hell yes. $80 for two lipsticks. $40 each. But, in my head, I rationalized that this was Canadian money, so it was really only $30 each, and a regular Bite lipstick is $26. Was it still a splurge, yeah, but not one that I regret.

My girl, Emily, really made the experience, and I am so happy that we found time to fit this into our trip.

What’s a makeup splurge you’ve made?