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?

Aubrey Organics--Peppermint & Tea Tree

Hello all! I am updating from inside a plane right now! (This is very exciting for me because we never purchase WiFi on planes!)

I apologize for the delays that have been occurring the last two weeks. I’ve been on vacation both weeks (last week was Orlando and this week was Los Angeles, I know…I travel way too much). The night before our flight, my boyfriend and I made a special trip to Whole Foods to buy some TOMS! I finally gave into the craze (I try so hard to stay away from these fads, but they looked so comfy and I needed a pair of shoes to walk around in that was not my mid-calf boots which I’ve been known to wear every single day of the year). Of course, since I was at Whole Foods, the lip balm aisle needed to be given a thorough look over; especially since I hadn’t been to that Whole Foods yet. I picked up two balms; one of which will be the feature of this review! (Who would have guessed?) Without further adieu…

I wanted to incorporate more of my travels with my balms so
here it is! Yes I was taking pictures of lip balm while sitting at
my gate. And yes people thought I was crazy, little did they
know that I was The Chapstick Wrangler!

Company: Aubrey Organics

Flavor: Peppermint & Tea Tree. This is a great mild peppermint lip balm. If you only like moderate mint and lip tingle then this may be the balm for you. There’s a slight tingle, not as much as some of my favorite mint lip balms but it’s still great!

Wear: This balm goes on great, no resistance is found with the first application. All subsequent applications are flawless. There are no complaints in this department. It feels thin when going on but you really don’t need that much to get good coverage.

Packaging: The size of this tube is your average lip balm tube size and the packaging has a very “pepperminty” or “candy cane” feel to it. The label itself is red on a white tube with the label having one corner containing image of half a peppermint candy. The cap on this is black. The red, white, and black combination just reminds me of candy canes and Christmas.

Price: Around $3 which I think is great for an organic balm.

Overall:
Pros: Packaging, Price, Flavor, Wear…the whole thing is great
Cons: Nothing is wrong with this balm!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 twists, this is a great additional minty balm to have in any collection.

Ingredients: beeswax, coconut oil, olive oil, jojoba seed oil, hemp seed oil, peppermint leaf oil, rosa mosqueta seed oil, vitamin E, tea tree oil

Savannah Bee Company

About a week and a half ago my boyfriend and I went on a walk to find some more plants for my little herb garden I've got growing out on my deck. This walk of course included a stop at Whole Foods along the way (where I did happen to find three plants I wanted). I love that every once in a while the lip balm selection at Whole Foods shifts; not to mention there's a killer selection every time I go to one. Anyway, it was a hot day and I hadn't picked up new lip balm in a while, so I picked up two. I've been using them like CRAZY while on vacation in Florida, for some reason our room is SUPER dry and I've had cracked lips this whole trip (and my love's had more than a handful of nose bleeds unfortunately...is that too much information?). Anyway, I hope I'm not too biased in this review on these balms because of how dry my lips are despite my frequent use of this lip balm.

I hope you don't mind the pictures, I figured since the sun finally poked its head out today I'd make use of it. I'm actually super impressed by how these pictures turned out with my camera.

Company: Savannah Bee Company

Flavors: Mint Julep and Earl Grey Tea. Both of these flavors are awesome! The Mint Julep is awesome, a nice blend of both peppermint and spearmint. It's super strong in scent (from about four feet away you can definitely smell mint in the air). If you love mint, you'll like this. It's slightly tingly and that's probably what I love about mint balms. As for the Earl Grey Tea, I still have never had a cup of Earl Grey Tea but my boyfriend says that it DEFINITELY smells like it. It's not very strong in scent but it doesn't leave you guessing for what flavor it could possibly be. It's a nice, light flavor that I really enjoy. If you're not into super strong scents, this may be the one for you. I believe they also carried Tupelo Honey, but I'm not a huge fan of honey so I didn't pick that one up. I'm assuming it would be great since the company is huge for specialty honeys! (Perhaps I should have bought the Honey flavor..hmm..).

Wear: These go on super smooth! I love that a lot of pressure is not needed to get these balms to go on. I have a cut on the inside of my lip from biting it so many times, I swear I feel like I am the only person who can bite their lips and tongue repeatedly in one sitting. So of course this whole week when I tried to put on balm, I was trying to avoid putting any pressure on this part of my lip and these balms really helped minimize the discomfort. I can't tell exactly how long they last since I've been using them this week in the SUPER hot Florida weather and the dry air in this room; neither of these factors allows for an accurate measurement of duration. So far they've been lasting close to an hour before I need to reapply, but I'm assuming under normative or ideal conditions these balms would last longer.

Packaging: These balms come in your average sized tube with labels that have colors that match the flavors. There's something very "homey" and "old-timey" about these labels. They remind me of the South? Maybe. I don't know exactly what these labels remind me of, but they're cute and simple.

Price: I think I paid about $3. This was great for a natural and certified organic balm that was pretty good quality.

Overall:
Pros: Flavors, Wear, Application, Packaging, Price
Cons: Nothin'!

Rating: 4 out of 5 twists. These were pretty fabulous balms and they have certainly been my go-to balms the last week or so. If you see these, I'd probably pick up one just to try. You won't be let down, especially if you pick up Mint Julep and you're a mint fan like myself.

Ingredients: beeswax, coconut oil, shea butter, extra virgin olive oil, cocoa seed butter, sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil, grape seed oil, hemp seed oil, peppermint oil, spearmint oil, lavender oil.

Have you guys ever tried this company, whether for their lip balms or their honey?

Aubrey Organics

A while ago my friend, who I'll refer to as L from now on, bought me a couple lip balms for no reason, she just saw them and thought I didn't have them and surprised me with them. One of those balms was this one. She's the best! She's always finding me cool new lip balms that I've never heard of before. I believe a good portion of my lip balm collection is from her. Love ya, L!

Company: Aubrey Organics

Flavors: Raspberry. This is on the stronger side of the scented spectrum for balm. It's very raspberry like and very sweet and a little tart scented. If you like fruity balms this is probably one you'd like to try.

Wear: It goes on pretty smooth and covers evenly. It lasts about two hours which is a pretty decent amount of time. Not a lot to complain about or boast about here.

Packaging: It's your average sized lip balm tube with a redish pink cap and a similar colored label. It's a pretty distinctive looking tube compared to others in my collection.

Price: About $3 which is fabulous for an organic balm that lasts.

Overall:
Pros: Accurately scented, wear, packaging, price, organic
Cons: Nothing really

Rating: I'd give this balm a 3.5 out of 5 twists, there wasn't really anything wrong with it at all it just wasn't exactly my cup of tea. I'd really like to try the other flavors, it may just be that it was a raspberry flavor and I seem not to enjoy those ones as much as other flavors.

love & toast

Last week while doing my usual Thursday night hang out with one of my good friends, we decided to go to Whole Foods in search of items to make vegan cookies (she's vegan, I'm not). Of course, if you've ever gone into a Whole Foods, you know exactly what their lip balm isle looks like: baskets and baskets of different lip balms! It's truly like being a kid in a candy store. My friend, who is not a lip balm addict like myself, was amazed to see me spend so much time perusing the different balms and coming back with six tubes (I only ended up purchasing five, and a parfait..yum!). I'll be writing about one of the new brands I happened to stumble over while admiring the wall of balms.

Company: love & toast

Flavors: I purchased Coconut Lime and Green Tea & Mint...if there's four things I love in this world it's got to be Coconut, Lime, Green Tea, and Mint. These were clearly the perfect flavors for me. The coconut lime has a mild blended scent of coconut and lime, not too much of one or the other. It's very similar to Bath and Body Works old Coconut Lime Verbena which I LOVED and stocked up on before they discontinued it and made Coconut Lime Breeze. It may be a little too similar to the lotion for me because when I put it on I feel like I've put the lotion all over my lips (my sister once squirted lotion in my mouth and it was an AWFUL experience, I don't recommend it). I liked the scent but it may have been too weird for me because I wear that lotion every day. The green tea and mint was just like a nice cup of green tea with just a hint of mint. It was wonderful and refreshing. They also have other unique flavors and I was sad I found all of them there except Blood Orange, I'd really like to try that one.

Wear: They both went on very smooth and easy, no real complaints in that department. They also both lasted about an hour which is pretty decent wearing strength. Pretty straight forward in this department.

Packaging: This was really the selling point for me and what drew me in. These balms have extremely unique and creative labels, not to mention the company name is pretty interesting as well. Each flavor has it's own lovely label and the designs are really eye catching. That's the one thing my friend really liked about them, when she saw them out on the counter she just had to pick them up and comment on how cool they looked. Also it's your typical lip balm size.

Price: I believe I paid about $3 for this balm. Pretty good price for a good product.

Overall:
Pros: Packaging! Flavors, wear, application, price
Cons: Nothing that I can see as of yet

Rating: 4 out of 5 twists, I love that packaging!