Who da Balm??

Ok ok, I know that's a cheesy pun (and probably overdone), but I thought of it all by myself, and I'm  proud of it.  =) So this post is about a few different lip products that I've picked up over the last several weeks. They're all what I like to call "pseudo-lippies". You know the ones I'm talking about. All of the drugstore cosmetic brands have come out with one recently - Revlon with their Lip Butters, Maybelline with their Color Whisper line, and L'Oreal with their Caress line. All of these products are basically lip balms pretending to be lipsticks. They all have very moisturizing qualities, and while some of them (like the Revlon Lip Butters) are fairly highly pigmented, none of them are really meant to last very long.


I do like this trend that's coming out though. My lips, like the rest of my face, tend to get dry very easily, and therefore very chapped (to the point of being painful sometimes). I like lipsticks with matte or cream finishes, but they generally don't have enough moisture for my flaky lips, and the lipstick ends up coming off in chunks (bleh!!) and making me look like a vampire that just finished eating. Ew, I know. So, needless to say, when the trend for moisturizing pseudo-lippies came out, I jumped on the bandwagon. I already talked a while back about the Revlon Lip Butters, but I picked up a few different ones recently:

Top: L'Oreal Paris Infallible 8HR Le Gloss in Sangria
Middle: Maybelline Color Whisper in Rose of Attraction
Bottom: L'Oreal Colour Riche Balm in Tender Mauve

Now, I know that the L'Oreal ones I've shown here aren't part of the new Colour Riche Caresse line. I had originally intended to pick up one of those, but I got sidetracked when I saw the Colour Riche Balms (mostly because anything with the word "balm" in it catches my attention). I really liked the colors of the balms more than the Caresse lippies, so I ended up picking up a couple of those instead (cheaper too!).

At the same time that I was buying these, I was also on the lookout for something semi-long wearing that wouldn't make my lips dry out completely and fall off, and so I also grabbed one of the L'Oreal Infallible 8HR Le Gloss lip glosses. Since gloss tends to be more moisturizing than lipstick, I figured I'd give it a try.

Swatches:

Top: L'Oreal Paris Infallible 8HR Le Gloss in Sangria
Middle: Maybelline Color Whisper in Rose of Attraction
Bottom: L'Oreal Colour Riche Balm in Tender Mauve

Swatches on me:

L'Oreal Colour Riche Lip Balm

Maybelline Color Whisper

L'Oreal Infallible Le Gloss

Whatcha think? I'd say as far as moisturizing properties go, I'd definitely pick either of the two L'Oreal pseudo-lippies. They make my lips incredibly soft, and the gloss actually does wear for several hours (even with eating and drinking). They apply very sheerly though, and the color can't really be built up. So if you're looking for a balm that doubles as a lippy, I'd definitely go with the Revlon Lip Butters or the Maybelline Color Whisper line.