It looks like a clumsy bottle top, or maybe the missing part of a child’s toy. But according to a mother and daughter team behind this simple plastic device, it can achieve an Angelina Jolie-sized pout without resort to chemicals, needles or a hefty bill.

The ‘Fullips’ device, a sort of suction-thimble, has already been seen at West End parties, and is going viral online. At a recent party in London’s Bulgari Hotel gaggles of models crowded around the bathroom sink mirrors together, not to powder their nose... but to suction their lips into the sort of look which is all the rage.

Apparently, the device works by creating a mini-vacuum while you suck on the apparatus, and this draws blood to the surface of the lips, which swell.

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Lipsmacking: Charlotte puckers up with the Fullips device, a sort of suction-thimble, that has gone viral online

I’ve never been one to resist a celebrity fad, so I sceptically ordered a set – Arizona-based inventors Linda Gomez and her daughter Krystle sell them for £30. A day later the enhancers arrived in a selection of three sizes, each one claiming to give a different shaped pout to a different sized mouth.

A long list of instructions comes with a link to a YouTube instruction video which has had more than a million hits.

For seven minutes Krystle talks to camera about how her 50-year-old mother’s advancing age means she needs lubrication in the form of moisturiser to establishing ‘tighter suction’ around her mouth and other methods. Having watched carefully, I gave it a go and was shocked to find that the device does work... sort of. The results were not as dramatic as I had hoped, nor quite as long lasting.

The reality is that my lips went rather blue and then got a bit puffy and then went back to normal after a few minutes. What lasted longer was the big red mark around my mouth. Indeed, the instructions warn that bruising is a danger. By the time I sat in front of the camera lens my lips had deflated, along with my enthusiasm and I was forced to resort to the tried-and-tested technique that has never failed me on a red carpet yet… the good old fashioned ‘mwah-mwah’ trout pout!