love & toast Additional Balms

A few months back I wrote about some love & toast balms I picked up at Whole Foods while I was shopping with a friend, the review for which can be found here. When I looked at their website online there were still a couple flavors I wanted to try that I had not found at Whole Foods and still have yet to find them even though I check almost every week when I stop there. To my luck, when I was shopping on Drugstore.com I searched lip balm and love & toast balms were some of the balms that popped up! Yippee! Not only did they have the flavors I wanted, but if you bought two balms you got one free, oh what a lucky day! I was finally able to try the other flavors I have been looking for!

Company: love & toast


Flavors: Strawberry Fields, Blood Orange, and Limeade. Unfortunately the Strawberry Fields melted a bit during shipping, but regardless it smelled delicious was dead on strawberry. It was so sweet and perfect for summer. I haven't bought a plain strawberry balm in a while and it was a pleasant visit from an old favorite. As for the Blood Orange, I was really disappointed. It has hardly a scent at all. I had to inhale for about 15 seconds to get even a tiny whiff of citrus. I was really hoping it would be amazing since, like I've said a thousand times, I LOVE blood orange balms. The Limeade is a dead on Limeade. Very tart and sour yet sweet all at the same time.


Wear: The Strawberry Fields went on so creamy. All three went on very smooth, no resistance was found upon application. They last about two hours too which is great. My lips feel nourished and I feel like the balm goes on thick enough that you don't need more than one or two swipes.


Packaging: I love these funky looking labels! They're not super funky and outrageous but each one is unique. They're so colorful and different from one another. I love to look at them! Otherwise, the tubes are your average sized lip balm tubes.


Price: $3, which is definitely not bad for a natural balm.

Overall:
Pros: Flavor, Wear, Packaging, Price
Cons: Some scents were weak

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 twists, the rating would have been higher if the Blood Orange was better. But you should definitely check out at least one of these balms.

Ingredients: Olive fruit juice, beeswax, jojoba seed oil, shea butter fruit, cocoa seed butter, natural flavor, hemp seed oil, aloe leaf, vitamin E, and stevia rebadiana leaf


Have you tried love & toast balms before? What's your favorite flavor?

Softlips: "Best of" Classics 5-pack + Raspberry

It seems just about time to do another post about one of my favorite lip balm brands, Softlips! I've decided to break up the sections according to their "Best of" packs on their website and then do their other special balms that don't fit into those categories in their own post. Of course I will also have to do a separate post on the Canadian flavors and lines of lip balm that I've got mixed into my collection. It's probably a little unhealthy to have as many Softlips tubes as I do, but I can't help it! With so many flavors and options, it's hard not to acquire so many! I suppose we should get right to it:

Company:Softlips

Flavors: Cherry, Mint with a Hint of Vanilla, Vanilla, Strawberry, and Wildberry. True to the majority of their flavors, these balms smell absolutely delicious! My personal favorite from this bunch is Mint with a Hint of Vanilla, it's a pleasant mint (by now you should all know I love mint balms) with a refreshing splash of Vanilla. It is such a lovely and interesting combination, perfect for any day. Next would probably be Strawberry, it's got a great scent and has a little different spin on Strawberry. It feels a little tingly on my lips after application but I like it. The Vanilla (another one of my favorite flavors) is also a light vanilla flavor and scent and great on it's own or mixed with another flavor. Wildberry I feel like has the best scent out of any of the others in this 5-pack, it smells just like fresh berries! The Cherry is probably my least favorite just because I am not a huge fan of Cherry flavored lip balms, but I've had many friends who actually think of it as their favorite. Another flavor I'm going to include in here, although it's not part of the "Best of" Classics 5-pack, is Raspberry with Green Tea Extract because I feel like it's another one of those "everyday" flavors that they carry. This one is probably the second best smelling out of the six flavors listed here and it is definitely my boyfriend's favorite Softlips flavor. All in all, every balm listed here is a winner. You can't really go wrong with any of these.

Wear: Like every tube of Softlips, every one glides on with ease right from the start. The smaller diameter allows for precise application onto your lips without fear that it will spread over around your mouth (unless that's how you want to put it on, by all means, please go ahead). The smaller diameter does mean that extra swipes are necessary to get full coverage but the scents are so delightful and they go on so smoothly, I doubt anyone would truly consider this a downfall to the application. Each tube also has an SPF of 20 which is always a fabulous bonus.

Packaging: Thin, long white tubes with colors of the company name and flavor matching the flavor of the balm. The tubes look very pleasant and are cute to carry around.

Price: Around $3 for a pack of two which is great for getting two balms, sometimes you can also find packs with two different flavors. However the tubes are about half the size of a usual tube so in comparison you're paying about the same amount for two tubes of Softlips as you pay for one tube of your average lip balm. I don't see any downside to this since I'm not paying any more money for them than I usually would.

Overall:
Pros: Flavors, Price, Packaging, Smooth Application
Cons:More swipes for proper coverage(?)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 twists