Our senses revolve around our eyes, our ears, our noses, but have you ever wondered how much less life, emotion, expression we’d enjoy if we didn’t have our lips?

A strange question I know, but let me ask you another. How old were you when you had your first kiss? I’ll hazard a guess that for many of us, that was the first moment you became fully attuned to the awareness of your lips.

I was the tender age of 11, maybe 12. A group of us were playing kissing catches, as children bordering on adolescence do. There was this gorgeous lad, a few years older than me and oh so good looking. He managed to catch me, cleverly, a little away from the rest of the group, and he kissed me, softy, gently – his lips briefly touching mine. Nothing more, nothing invasive, just a brief, tentative touch of his lips to mine.

Well, that was it, I was sold! None of the phony, “Oh how awful! Yuck, that’s gross!” nonsense. I was addicted, mesmerised by lips and yes, I confess, extremely intrigued with kissing, but oh so spellbound by lips.

That’s when I started to notice how magnificent they really are. Their individually unique curves and lines, shapes and sizes. Thin or voluptuous, sulky or sultry. If they’re cracked and dry, you can feel their owner’s pain. If they’re soft and luscious, you feel their wearer’s comfort. Regardless, they’re watchable for hours. As you watch them, you see expressions not necessarily carried in the words passing through them, emotions or messages not necessarily visible in the wearer’s eyes, perhaps not even displayed elsewhere on their face.

Lips speak a language of their own; that little hidden smirk, that subtle leer, or that friendly warmth teasing the corners with a soft curl. Then, how about a full-blown smile, bringing life and teeth to a face, releasing a deep dimple invisible were it not for the imprint of the curling lips.

Wrap your lips around a cold ice cream on a hot summer’s day, or gently rest them against a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s morning and feel the difference, the expression, the value they bring to your life.

What story will your lips bring to the world today – life and song, love and kisses, or pouty gloom and depressing hisses?