I always keep several lipglosses & balms in my makeup bag, including the ones I rarely ever use – backups & backups of backups etc. So instead of doing one dedicated post for every neglected balm I’m going to pile them into one with a brief review of why I don’t use them much.
Eyeko Fat Balm
Eyeko is a brand with an anime feel created in London. Most of their products are housed in pink packaging and hail themselves as “London’s cutest cosmetics”. However, they don’t give me the “wow, how cute I must have one!” vibe. Their products are all inexpensive ranging from £3-£6 per item, and there’s free worldwide shipping regardless of order amount (yes even if you order a single £3 nail polish).
Minty Fat Balm – Sweet baby pink with a minty smell and feel, gives lips a pearly pink sheen. Quite nice in general but I don’t use this much because I have many balms which work better and the chunky size of this balm makes it less than ideal for applications.
Strawberry Fat Balm – Doesn’t moisturize much and has an artificial strawberry smell, and like the minty version it’s a bit inconvenient to use. However it does work nicely as a cheek blush and gives a sheer natural glow, and its surface area works nicely for a blush too.
Korres Quince Lip Butter
Very soft and buttery texture (mmm butter) with a healthy red tint, very hydrating without being too greasy with a pleasant smell to boot. Sounds perfect? Not quite, because this stuff clings to flakey skin like my little sister clings onto her ice cream and it ends up emphasizing any bit of dry lip skin you have. Doesn’t look very nice, but is fine if you exfoliate beforehand. I do use this one now and again.
Lush Lip Balms
Whipstick – Smells great like chocolate orange but the texture is just weird; either too hard if you leave it somewhere cool, or too soft and mushy if you keep it in your pocket. Doesn’t really moisturize much and just kind of sits on the surface of your lips. Packaging is unfortunately ugly too.
Lite Lip – This is one of those things that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Has a strange floral smell, feels like a small rock and does not moisturize at all. Defeats the point of it being a lip balm really… Most Lush products I’ve tried just don’t deliver so I’ve banned myself from ever buying from them again.
The Body Shop Pink Grapefruit Lip Butter
Smells like grapefruit which I love but moisturizes like sand paper. Feels gritty (why do they call this “butter” when it has no characteristics of such??) and leaves a milky film which makes my lips look white. Thumbs down for this white paste in disguise.
The Body Shop Born Lippy Lip Balm
Satsuma – I like the smell of satsuma but this is a bit too artificial. It looks orange in the pot but comes out clear with a very faint orange tint which doesn’t shows up once applied to lips, and it also has a very small amount of shimmer. This is more of a gloss than a balm because it’s not that hydrating at all, but it doesn’t last that long for a gloss and has a strange sweet plasticky taste. Not very pleasant.
Watermelon – This is better than the satsuma version in my opinion. Has no shimmer, comes out clear on lips and smells like sweet watermelon. Not moisturizing enough during winter, on chapped lips, or as an overnight treatment but as an everyday balm it is actually ok. I think I’d like this a lot more if I loved the smell of watermelons.