diff --git a/core_dsl.go b/core_dsl.go
index 47d2efee7..5e78a92f3 100644
--- a/core_dsl.go
+++ b/core_dsl.go
@@ -172,6 +172,20 @@ func GinkgoHelper() {
 	types.MarkAsHelper(1)
 }
 
+/*
+GinkgoLabelFilter() returns the label filter configured for this suite via `--label-filter`.
+
+You can use this to manually check if a set of labels would satisfy the filter via:
+
+	if (Label("cat", "dog").MatchesLabelFilter(GinkgoLabelFilter())) {
+		//...
+	}
+*/
+func GinkgoLabelFilter() string {
+	suiteConfig, _ := GinkgoConfiguration()
+	return suiteConfig.LabelFilter
+}
+
 /*
 PauseOutputInterception() pauses Ginkgo's output interception.  This is only relevant
 when running in parallel and output to stdout/stderr is being intercepted.  You generally
diff --git a/docs/index.md b/docs/index.md
index b1da6ce94..92c52a457 100644
--- a/docs/index.md
+++ b/docs/index.md
@@ -1362,7 +1362,7 @@ DescribeTable("Extracting the author's first and last name",
 You'll be notified with a clear message at runtime if the parameter types don't match the spec closure signature.
 
 #### Mental Model: Table Specs are just Syntactic Sugar
-`DescribeTable` is simply providing syntactic sugar to convert its inputs into a set of standard Ginkgo nodes.  During the [Tree Construction Phase](#mental-model-how-ginkgo-traverses-the-spec-hierarchy) `DescribeTable` is generating a single container node that contains one subject node per table entry.  The description for the container node will be the description passed to `DescribeTable` and the descriptions for the subject nodes will be the descriptions passed to the `Entry`s.  During the Run Phase, when specs run, each subject node will simply invoke the spec closure passed to `DescribeTable`, passing in the parameters associated with the `Entry`.
+`DescribeTable` is simply providing syntactic sugar to convert its Ls into a set of standard Ginkgo nodes.  During the [Tree Construction Phase](#mental-model-how-ginkgo-traverses-the-spec-hierarchy) `DescribeTable` is generating a single container node that contains one subject node per table entry.  The description for the container node will be the description passed to `DescribeTable` and the descriptions for the subject nodes will be the descriptions passed to the `Entry`s.  During the Run Phase, when specs run, each subject node will simply invoke the spec closure passed to `DescribeTable`, passing in the parameters associated with the `Entry`.
 
 To put it another way, the table test above is equivalent to:
 
@@ -2493,6 +2493,20 @@ You can list the labels used in a given package using the `ginkgo labels` subcom
 
 You can iterate on different filters quickly with `ginkgo --dry-run -v --label-filter=FILTER`.  This will cause Ginkgo to tell you which specs it will run for a given filter without actually running anything.
 
+If you want to have finer-grained control within a test about what code to run/not-run depending on what labels match/don't match the filter you can perform a manual check against the label-filter passed into Ginkgo like so:
+
+```go
+It("can save books remotely", Label("network", "slow", "library query") {
+  if Label("performance").MatchesLabelFilter(GinkgoLabelFilter()) {
+    exp := gmeasure.NewExperiment()
+    // perform some benchmarking with exp...
+  }
+  // rest of the saving books test
+})
+```
+
+here `GinkgoLabelFilter()` returns the configured label filter passed in via `--label-filter`.  With a setup like this you could run `ginkgo --label-filter="network && !performance"` - this would select the `"can save books remotely"` spec but not run the benchmarking code in the spec.  Of course, this could also have been modeled as a separate spec with the `performance` label.
+
 Finally, in addition to specifying Labels on subject and container nodes you can also specify suite-wide labels by decorating the `RunSpecs` command with `Label`:
 
 ```go
diff --git a/dsl/core/core_dsl.go b/dsl/core/core_dsl.go
index b4287b773..8314d7d82 100644
--- a/dsl/core/core_dsl.go
+++ b/dsl/core/core_dsl.go
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ var GinkgoConfiguration = ginkgo.GinkgoConfiguration
 var GinkgoRandomSeed = ginkgo.GinkgoRandomSeed
 var GinkgoParallelProcess = ginkgo.GinkgoParallelProcess
 var GinkgoHelper = ginkgo.GinkgoHelper
+var GinkgoLabelFilter = ginkgo.GinkgoLabelFilter
 var PauseOutputInterception = ginkgo.PauseOutputInterception
 var ResumeOutputInterception = ginkgo.ResumeOutputInterception
 var RunSpecs = ginkgo.RunSpecs
diff --git a/integration/_fixtures/filter_fixture/filter_suite_test.go b/integration/_fixtures/filter_fixture/filter_suite_test.go
index 94f12ecb0..ac6a5e782 100644
--- a/integration/_fixtures/filter_fixture/filter_suite_test.go
+++ b/integration/_fixtures/filter_fixture/filter_suite_test.go
@@ -11,3 +11,8 @@ func TestFilterFixture(t *testing.T) {
 	RegisterFailHandler(Fail)
 	RunSpecs(t, "FilterFixture Suite", Label("TopLevelLabel"))
 }
+
+var _ = BeforeEach(func() {
+	config, _ := GinkgoConfiguration()
+	Ω(GinkgoLabelFilter()).Should(Equal(config.LabelFilter))
+})
diff --git a/internal/node.go b/internal/node.go
index 9bbd258c0..0869bffb3 100644
--- a/internal/node.go
+++ b/internal/node.go
@@ -93,6 +93,10 @@ type NodeTimeout time.Duration
 type SpecTimeout time.Duration
 type GracePeriod time.Duration
 
+func (l Labels) MatchesLabelFilter(query string) bool {
+	return types.MustParseLabelFilter(query)(l)
+}
+
 func UnionOfLabels(labels ...Labels) Labels {
 	out := Labels{}
 	seen := map[string]bool{}
diff --git a/internal/node_test.go b/internal/node_test.go
index 0e5134c41..588053a76 100644
--- a/internal/node_test.go
+++ b/internal/node_test.go
@@ -1621,6 +1621,22 @@ var _ = Describe("Nodes", func() {
 		})
 
 	})
+
+	Describe("Labels", func() {
+		It("can match against a filter", func() {
+			Ω(Label().MatchesLabelFilter("")).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("dog")).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("cat")).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("dog && cat")).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("dog || cat")).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("!fish")).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("fish")).Should(BeFalse())
+			Ω(Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("!dog")).Should(BeFalse())
+			Ω(func() {
+				Label("dog", "cat").MatchesLabelFilter("!")
+			}).Should(Panic())
+		})
+	})
 })
 
 var _ = Describe("Iteration Performance", Serial, Label("performance"), func() {
diff --git a/types/label_filter.go b/types/label_filter.go
index 0403f9e63..b0d3b651e 100644
--- a/types/label_filter.go
+++ b/types/label_filter.go
@@ -272,12 +272,23 @@ func tokenize(input string) func() (*treeNode, error) {
 	}
 }
 
+func MustParseLabelFilter(input string) LabelFilter {
+	filter, err := ParseLabelFilter(input)
+	if err != nil {
+		panic(err)
+	}
+	return filter
+}
+
 func ParseLabelFilter(input string) (LabelFilter, error) {
 	if DEBUG_LABEL_FILTER_PARSING {
 		fmt.Println("\n==============")
 		fmt.Println("Input: ", input)
 		fmt.Print("Tokens: ")
 	}
+	if input == "" {
+		return func(_ []string) bool { return true }, nil
+	}
 	nextToken := tokenize(input)
 
 	root := &treeNode{token: lfTokenRoot}
diff --git a/types/label_filter_test.go b/types/label_filter_test.go
index 50ddf2b83..cca3d2166 100644
--- a/types/label_filter_test.go
+++ b/types/label_filter_test.go
@@ -68,6 +68,10 @@ var _ = Describe("LabelFilter", func() {
 				}
 			}
 		},
+		Entry("An empty label", "",
+			M("cat"), M("cat", "dog"), M("dog", "cat"),
+			M(), M("cow"),
+		),
 		Entry("A single label", "cat",
 			M("cat"), M("cat", "dog"), M("dog", "cat"),
 			NM(), NM("cow"),
@@ -187,4 +191,14 @@ var _ = Describe("LabelFilter", func() {
 		Entry(nil, "cow)", "", types.GinkgoErrors.InvalidLabel("cow)", cl)),
 		Entry(nil, "cow/", "", types.GinkgoErrors.InvalidLabel("cow/", cl)),
 	)
+
+	Describe("MustParseLabelFilter", func() {
+		It("panics if passed an invalid filter", func() {
+			Ω(types.MustParseLabelFilter("dog")([]string{"dog"})).Should(BeTrue())
+			Ω(types.MustParseLabelFilter("dog")([]string{"cat"})).Should(BeFalse())
+			Ω(func() {
+				types.MustParseLabelFilter("!")
+			}).Should(Panic())
+		})
+	})
 })