This month I am focusing on lip products and so far, I have reviewed lipsticks, lipglosses and lip creams but one of the most essential lip products in my beauty cupboard is lip balm.
Lip balm is one of those products that is marketed as either skincare or cosmetics – depending on the brand. Personally I prefer a ‘skincare’ lipbalm as I feel that it has a greater focus on good ingredients. One of the most rated lip products on the market is Nuxe’s Reve de Miel (literal translation – Honey Dream) is one of Nuxes hero products (the other being Huile Prodigieuse).
So, I am a person who is very specific when it comes to scent. I don’t like too heady, to synthetic or too sweet. I hated the L’Occitane scent Lemon and Honey range of products which I felt had a cloying honey scent. In terms of honey fragrances I think I have been a bit put off by this smell. So even through this product has been on my radar for many years, it is a recent purchase for me.
The balm is a pretty hefty fifteen grams and is housed in a glass pot (hurrah). I love the fact that this product did not come with an inner lid (you know, the bit of plastic that separates the product from the lid and that you generally loose of drop on the floor within the first five uses). It is just the balm and the lid.
When you open it up the balm does not have the shiny emollient texture that you would expect of a lip balm. It is well matte. More on that later.
The smell is GLORIOUS. A hint of honey which a whole heap of grapefruit (hurrah). I spend quite a lot of time sniffing this product (it smells really good). So back to the texture. It is a matte lipgloss. Matte. Which means that you don’t have a shiny glossy mouth, it just looks like your lips but they are moisturised. Which means that this is great to use under lipsticks (especially matte ones and those with a stiffer texture) and lip glosses.
The ingredients are very interesting. It is a beeswax and vegetable oil base, with honey, shea butter, almond oil, grapefruit peel oil, rosehip seed oil, soybean oil and a double dose of dimethicone. Yes, really. I don’t have an issue with dimethicone being in the product I was just surprised that it was. This product is fab, it stays on the lips after a pint of tea and associated cakes and biscuits. It transforms chapped lips very quickly and I am really enjoying using it.