Whispering Willow

In July I did a ton of lip balm buying and came home with a bunch of huge hauls. From my first huge haul (found here) I received these lip balms. Whispering Willow had been one of the first lip balm shops I had ever looked at when I first started using Etsy, but never purchased from them. It might have been because most of their flavors are very basic and simple, but when they had a sale on their products in July, I figured it was just about time that I give them a try!

Company: Whispering Willow

Flavors: Lemon and Mint. These flavors are so wonderful! You'd think that they'd be your plain lip balms but both are pretty great! The Lemon is a great sweet lemony balm, so if you're like me and LOVE lemon anything, this will be one you want to try. The Mint balm is also a great example of what a mint balm should be. It's cool and crisp and just wonderful. It reminds me of double mint gum, which is totally yum!

Wear: These go on very smooth! And they go on so well! They go on a bit thicker than some of my other balms and it is just fabulous. It really feels like my lips are being nourished. The balms are very creamy and it really is just lovely!

Packaging: These balms come in your average sized lip balm tubes that have white labels. The white labels have a tree depicted on them and two color bands, one on the top and one on the top, that match the flavor of the balm inside the tube. It's strange, but awesome, the way these labels feel. They're matte and not waxy at all which makes them super smooth in my hand. I don't know if that's really weird or not, but these balms have the best labels I've ever felt!

Price: $6 for 2 or $10 for 4, both are great prices for a handmade, natural lip balm!

Overall:
Pros: Flavors, Wear, Packaging, Price, Labels!
Cons: More Flavors!

Rating: 3 out of 5 twists. These balms are pretty great. Definitely worth trying especially if you're looking for a new staple balm to throw into your make-up bag or desk drawer.

Ingredients:
Lemon Lip Balm: organic beeswax, organic coconut oil, organic honey, organic lemon flavoring.
Mint Lip Balm: organic beeswax, organic coconut oil, organic honey, organic mint flavoring.

Have you tried Whispering Willow products before? What did you think of them?

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

Whispering Willow is Having a Sale!

It seems like everyone is having a sale in July, perhaps everyone got the same idea to do a Christmas in July kind of sale? I found another company who has a sale going on today: Whispering Willow.

All of Whispering Willow's products are 25% off right now, no code necessary, everything has just been reduced. I've been dying to try their balms and this may very well be the opportunity I was waiting for to try them out. Their Etsy page can be found here. I'm not sure when the sale ends so if you're planning to buy you should do so quickly! To stay up to date with everything going on with Whispering Willow, you should follow them on Facebook here.

I'm thinking about purchasing the 4 pack and get the Lemon, Mint, Vanilla, and Orange. It's usually $10 for the 4, but with the sale its $7.50.

Will you be taking advantage of this sale? What are some of your favorite products from Whispering Willow if you've tried them before? I'd love any advice or recommendations on this company!

eos (Evolution of Smooth)

If you've ever stood in line at a Walmart check out you've probably noticed these brightly colored spheres next to the lip balms in the impulse section. I had always noticed them and never knew what they were, simply passed them by every time I saw them. One day I decided to pick one up and realized it was a lip balm! As soon as I picked up one flavor, a friend suggested two other flavors which of course I picked up as well and before you knew it I was completely hooked on these cute little spheres! I now have basically every flavor (including their stick options). It took me a long while and a trip to San Francisco but I have successfully acquired all of the spheres (including some limited edition ones). 

Company: eos (Evolution of Smooth) 

Flavors: Lemon Drop (SPF 15), Summer Fruit, Honeysuckle Honeydew, Sweet Mint, Tangerine (Medicated), Strawberry Sorbet, and Passion fruit. The Lemon Drop flavor is my absolute favorite, I've never had a lemon lip balm before this one and I absolutely loved the flavor and scent. My friends saw me constantly putting it on (the sphere on the inside is no longer a sphere, it was almost completely flat by the end of the first two weeks of owning it). Its sweet and fresh. The Tangerine is my next favorite, you can't really tell that it's Tangerine but there's something about it that I just love. Sweet mint is in 3rd place, I love anything mint so this was definitely going to make my top three. It's a subtle mint and not at all overbearing. The scents on all of these balms are light and fragrant and not at all obnoxious. The rest of the flavors are good as well, not my favorites but still pretty good. Passion fruit and Strawberry Sorbet were the limited edition flavors last summer and I was really excited to find them finally in store in San Francisco but was disappointed that past a nice, light scent there was no flavor and no real "oomph" or anything spectacular about it. They also carry Vanilla Bean, Pomegranate Raspberry, and Sweet Mint in their tube forms. I was not a fan at all of the Vanilla Bean but I didn't mind the Pomegranate Raspberry. It may have been the sticks I received but the scents/flavors didn't compare to the spheres. I'll try them again but for now, I'm sticking to the spheres.

Wear: The sphere takes a second to get warmed up and quickly does and goes on great. It's not a slick application, it's always a little stiff but if it weren't the sphere would most likely not hold its shape at all. The coverage is great, using the sphere is much different from the usual lip balms you find in stores. The round shape of the sphere allows you to place balm where you want it, but once you get to a flat state like mine, balm can stray off the lips but that's only if you decide to forgo maintaining the spherical shape of the balm. My lips always feel really smooth after application and it usually lasts at least an hour.

Packaging: The balms come in cute colorful spheres, each color coded to match their flavor. Very original packaging, not your usual drugstore tube. It definitely makes you stand out but the sphere is harder to carry around than your usual tube if you're trying to fit it into your jeans pocket. What else is there to say, the packaging is awesome and unique!

Price: The price varies depending on where you buy. You can get them at Walmart for about $2.96 which is a great price for what you get, but if you buy from other places you may pay anywhere from $3.25-$4. You also get 0.25oz for around the same price as an average tube of lip balm which is only 0.15oz, which means this balm lasts you longer than your normal lip balm for about the same price. Wonderful!

Overall:
Pros: Packaging, Price, Variety in Flavors, Wear, Long Lasting, Most Organic
Cons: Only one flavor has SPF, Can't fit in jean pocket


Rating: 5 out of 5 twists, there isn't enough good stuff I can say about this balm. If you haven't tried them yet, you are definitely missing out!