Balms of the Week 7.29.12

This week my go-to balms have been:

Burt's Bees' Refreshing Lip Balm with Grapefruit

(review can be found here)

DressGreen's Peach Lime

(review can be found here)

Blamtastic's Lemon-licious

(review can be found here)

What balms have you been using this week? Have you tried any new ones this week?

Have a great week!

--The Lip Balm Wrangler

Burt's Bees

I had always wanted to try Burt's Bees balms but when I first tried them, I did not like them one bit. I felt they smelled like baby powder and just weren't that great. But everyone was using them like crazy and almost everywhere sells them now. A while ago a reader told me to write a review on Burt's Bee's and I was skeptical about doing it because I had only used one balm by them a couple years ago and I really didn't like it and I didn't want to write a review about how bad Burt's Bees was based on one tube of lip balm. After giving it some thought, I considered purchasing another type of Burt's Bees lip balm. I don't know why it's taken me so long to write about it but I'm finally getting around to it. Here we go!

Company: Burt's Bees

Flavors: Burt's Bees Nourishing Lip Balm with Mango Butter and Burt's Bees Refreshing lip balm. When I first purchased the mango butter one, I thought I'd love it. It was the first balm I had come across that had mango in it. Boy was I disappointed. It had little to no scent and the scent it did have wasn't pleasant at all! It actually kind of grossed me out. I used it once, thought about how much a disappointment and a waste it was, and never looked back. Fast forward 3 years to about a month and a half ago. I was doing my usual lip balm safari, checkin' out the cold and flu aisle. I was looking at Burt's Bees and I just love how the packaging is. I saw the Refreshing flavor and decided I'd give it a shot. Boy, am I glad I did! I LOVED the refreshing balm. It said it was supposed to be grapefruit and I was extremely weary because I've tried so many grapefruit balms in the past and none of them were ever really grapefruit; most of the time the scent was too light to detect anything. This is understandable since grapefruits are such delicately scented fruits, but man oh man did Burt's Bees get it right! It is distinctly grapefruit and it just blows my mind, it's SO wonderful. If you like grapefruit or citrus fruits, do not pass this one up!

Wear: These balms go on SO smooth! They also last at least two hours, fabulous! It goes on evenly and covers easily. I don't know what else to say about these balms but there are no complaints in this department.

Packaging: Everyone has probably seen a Burt's Bees tube. I think they're all gold/yellow tubes with different colored caps meant to match the flavor of the balm. The packaging always looks so neat and pleasing to the eye. Nothing too fancy in this department, but like I always say, you don't need a flashy package to make a great product.

Price: Around $3 a tube which is not bad at all. These balms are also natural so they're definitely worth it for the price.

Overall:

Pros: Grapefruit flavor, wear, packaging, price, natural

Cons: Mango butter

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 twists for the grapefruit flavor and a 2 out of 5 for the mango flavor. I know the balm isn't really supposed to be mango, just that it was made out of mango butter but it was just not pleasing at all to me. Maybe it was an older formula or something, but it just was not my cup of tea. The grapefruit one though, just amazing!

Ingredients: 
For Burt's Bees Refreshing Lip Balm: helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, cera alba (beeswax, cire d’abeille), aroma (flavor)*, ricinus communis (castor) seed oil, lanolin, citrus paradisi (grapefruit) seed oil, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf extract, tocopherol, ammonium glycyrrhizate, canola oil (huile de colza), glycine soja (soybean) oil, limonene. *natural flavor

For Burt's Bees Nourishing Lip Balm with Mango Butter: helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, cera alba (beeswax, cire d'abeille), aroma (flavor)*, ricinus communis (castor) seed oil, mangifera indica (mango) seed butter, llanolin, ammonium glycyrrhizinate, tocopherol, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf extract, glycine soja (soybean) oil, canola oil (huile de colza), limonene, linalool. *natural flavor

Have you tried either of these flavors? What did you think? What other flavors of Burt's Bees would you recommend?

Hugo Naturals

As you've probably read before in some of my posts, I have a good friend who often surprises me with lip balm on random occasions. About a month and a half ago she kept telling me she picked up some lip balms she wanted me to try. Today, I'll review one of the brands from that day. I also went out and purchased the other flavors to give a comparison on flavor and wear.

I know it's so surprising for me to post during the week versus at the end of the week, but I figured I've got an influx of new lip balms coming my way so I better start reviewing!

Company: Hugo Naturals

Flavors: Grapefruit, Vanilla and Sweet Orange, and Pineapple & Coconut. The flavor my friend picked up for me was grapefruit. It has a very, very, very subtle scent which is not surprising since grapefruits are such delicate fruits. It's not a plain balm but definitely not a strong scented balm. The Pineapple & Coconut balm didn't have a scent at all like Pineapple or Coconut, I was really disappointed in this. I love Pineapple and Coconut and was really hoping that this balm would be awesome. The best flavor out of these three was definitely Vanilla and Sweet Orange, you can definitely tell there's a scent of orange in there and a light hint of vanilla. Neither scent is over bearing or stronger than the other, it was a perfect blend.

Wear: Each balm had a different consistency and application which I was also disappointed in and confused about because I figured the balms would all go on in the same manner. The grapefruit one was stiff at first and then went on with only minimal difficulty, it softened up just a little during application. This balm however lasted OVER THREE HOURS, it even lasted through a shower! I was AMAZED. That is the longest I've ever had a balm last before, which is why I had to absolutely purchase the other flavors. Unfortunately, the pineapple & coconut continued to disappoint me. It was absolutely the stiffest balm I've ever tried to use. The balm never softened up and it just felt like I was trying to force a balm on lips, my lips were dragging with it! It felt uncomfortable on my lips and I just had to rub it off. I don't know what was wrong with this particular balm I picked up but it was just dreadful, other tubes may be better I don't know if I just had bad luck with this one or not. The Vanilla and Sweet Orange went on so smooth! It was just a little stiff in the beginning and very quickly softened up. It went on great and lasted very close to 3 hours, my unfortunate habit of eating constantly tends to interrupt how long a balm lasts. I'm really confused as to why three different flavors of balm made by the same company could all be so different when it comes to application and consistency, I had hoped that each product would maintain at least some sort of consistency.

Packaging: I love the packaging on these balms! They look so sophisticated, they're your average size tube of balm but clear with a brown label with a colored band that matches the flavor. You definitely get a natural feel from this balm. I really enjoy the packaging.

Price: About $3.39. A pretty good price, I wished there had been more consistency in the quality of the product however.

Overall:
Pros: Packaging, price, variety of flavors, natural, lasts FOREVER
Cons: Lack of consistency, one balm was awful in comparison to the rest

Rating: 3.5 out of 5, if I was rating just the Vanilla and Sweet Orange I'd say 4.25 out of 5. If you were to go out and buy this balm I'd most definitely recommend the Vanilla and Sweet Orange flavor.