This is the exact amount of lipstick left over after you're "finished" with it

Have you ever finished a lipstick bullet down to the very bottom? If so, you've probably dug in with a lip brush to get as much as you can. If you're a thrifty beauty nerd, then you would've scraped out what you can with a small knife. But how much, exactly, is left over when you're done with a lipstick tube? How does this amount vary compared to the stated number of grams on the label, what you see with your eyes, and what's down below the bullet?

Well, since I can be a tinge (just a little) bit OC about things like this, I found out thanks to my trusty digital scale!

The packaging of the lipstick allots a "hidden" base to stabilize the lipstick as you're swiping it around. Nobody likes a broken lipstick, so to keep the waxy color from falling out, some of it is rooted inside the hidden base while there's a part that you can actually twist out and use. Until today though, I didn't know exactly how much. Surprise, surprise: it turns out that half of the lipstick is inside, while half is outside (more or less) based on my weighing scale. 

If that didn't register, let me repeat: HALF of your lipstick is inside the tube. Here are the receipts!

PS: Note that the scale has been adjusted not to weigh the tissue and that I tried to get as much out as possible with a cosmetic spatula. I also cut off the lipstick at the base. Finally, each lipstick has been used a maximum of five times or less, as the colors weren't exactly my cup of tea or I just kinda forgot about them. 

The Estee lauder Pure Color Lipstick says it has 3.4 grams of product on the label. The visible lipstick is 2 grams, while the invisible lipstick is also 2 grams. So that's good news: you get .6 grams of product "free"! Lol.

MAC says that there are 3 grams of product in every tube. I barely used this lipstick, Lavender Whip, because it is a cruel lavender and I am Asian. Anyway. The visible lipstick is two grams, while the invisible part is also 2 grams. That's a full gram of "free" lipstick, woot.

The L'Oreal Color Riche Lipstick says it has 3.7 grams of product on the label. Same as the Estee Lauder and MAC, it has 2 grams each of visible and invisible lipstick. That's about .3 grams of extra product.

Surprisingly, Maybelline's Colorsensational lipstick has 3 grams of visible product and 2 grams underneath. Its stated amount is 3.9 grams, so that means there's 1.1 full extra grams of lipstick. This has the most substantial amount of lipstick as noted on the label, as well as the most amount of extra product. Rhetorical question: How does Maybelline make money???

(Actual Answer: cheap production cost and large volume of sales).

So that was fun to know. ^_^ Have you tried digging out your lipsticks?