Anyhoos, since I'm still battling dehydration, my lips get dry frequently; although not chapped and bleeding like during winter, thank goodness. So I thought it would be a good idea to check out lip balms. To my pleasant surprise, the trending thing recently (ok last year, for you fashionistas) is tinted lip balm. How perfect this sounds for
Sure enough, there's tons of products to choose from with a plethora of shades and promises of improved texture, hydration and staying power. So I had to filter products based on the following factors: cheap and accessible (ie drugstore), colour, staying power, ingredients, transfer.
After doing my online research and hovering along the drugstore aisles, I narrowed it down to these 3: Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter, Nivea Soft Rose Lip Balm and Lip Ice Sheer Color Lip Moisturiser. It's obvious which one I went for. In any case, Revlon was too brightly coloured for everyday use; Nivea had pretty bad online reviews. So let's cut to the chase.
This comes in a standard twist-up tube that's slim and compact. What intrigued me is that it is colour-changeable. This is in no way groundbreaking, but I have never tried any such products before and it just sort of appealed to my curiosity. This range comes in 3 variations: fragrance-free, strawberry, and shimmer. I chose the fragrance-free version.
The other reason why I chose this over Nivea is the ingredients. It contains natural emollients -hello shea, macadamia oil and jojoba!- as opposed to Nivea which had mineral oil as the first thing on the list. So while this balm also contains mineral oil, it is listed way further down the line, after the yummiest ingredients.
So here's the exciting bit. As you can see, the product itself is clear.
And here's my lips. Naked and dry. My lips are considered quite nicely pigmented but most of the time I just feel it's blaah.
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| Before |
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| After |
After one swipe, there's a tinge of colour. Being curious about the effect, I decided on one more...
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| 2 layers |
Ho what is this sorcery! My lips are now pink! Ok the scientific explanation is that these colour adaptive cosmetics react to the pH level of the skin and hence changes in colour. Cool.
The downside is there is no variety of shades to choose from. I actually abhor this shade of pink as I find it too cutesy-bubblegum-I-love-rainbows-and-hearts. But. It actually looks pretty natural on me since I have pink tones.
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| Excuse the big nose |
The upside of this product is that it is very moisturising and doesn't feel sticky or greasy like the lip balms of last millenium. While the product doesn't stay long on the lips (I think it was just over an hour), the hydrating effects persist so at least I don't actually have to reapply till a few hours later.
My biggest concern really, is transfer, since I love to kiss my kids and snuggle up with them. I don't like to contaminate their skin! So how did this fare?
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| Kiss test |
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| Wipe test |
As you can see, this is not transfer-proof although it does take a firm swipe to get most of the product off. Slightly disappointed in that, but it only confirms my suspicion: there is probably no tinted lip balm in the market that is completely transfer-proof.
Verdict: Rave
For the purposes I had set out to achieve, this product has met each criterion to a decent standard. And for it's price at $6.10 (RRP $7.60 at Watsons), it did exceed some of the expectations I had. If you are more interested in colour though, I would recommend the Revlon Lip Butter as other reviewers have rated it highly in terms of staying power and colour payoff.
As for myself, I would continue to use this product when I go out, and stick to a colourless lip balm at home.
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