Mmm, frosty!

It all started when I was rushing to get ready, at the last minute, for school. I had everything I needed on hand, and was ready to go, but then I just had to look at the mirror. Then I discovered it: my lips were chapped (and they'd just gone a day without lip balm!). It was so bad that the skin looked like wrecked roof shingles. So I ran up to my mother's bathroom and stole a little Vaseline to soothe my lips. This should've been a quick fix, but the petroleum jelly turned my lips bright red. So bright, they could've stood in for a lighthouse beacon. I didn't even trust using my beloved Carmex on my badly damaged lips after that episode.

I am not one of the ladies who look stunning with scarlet lips. I like my lips pale and pink, not glaring red. It doesn't fit in with my complexion, so I decided to rifle my local grocery stores for a lip balm that was all natural, without any petroleum jelly. I needed something that would protect my pucker without irritating it. And so I found Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer in Champagne. At first I was stuck a little by the price, being the penny pincher I am. But looking over at the all-natural ingredients, and the fact that it had sheer pink pigments and light-reflecting shimmery particles in it, I found that BBLS in Champagne had everything I wanted. No more red lips! I thought. What did I want from this product, exactly?

Relief: The moment I applied the stuff on, I swear, I heard a choir somewhere. I love the aroma and feel of peppermint, so I was jubilant when I saw peppermint oil listed in the ingredients. My lips were soothed, and after the menthol feel of the balm faded, it still went on to protect the delicate skin of my lips. Just goes to show that natural is best.

Wear: I applied two coats of the balm on each lip and it lasted pretty long, about three hours. It's pretty windy where I live, and this balm stands up well to the elements. I'm coming to use a light balm with sunscreen under the Lip Shimmer, though, because the Lip Shimmer itself doesn't have any sunscreen.

And maybe most importantly...

The Look: After I put on two coats, I looked in the mirror and just went, "Wow". My lips still had that chapped texture, but they felt better, and they WEREN'T RED! They weren't a light pastel pink like the cap, but I'm guessing that Lip Shimmer was not meant to have the boldness of lipstick. It says, "Luminescent and sheer color...." on the tube. Still, my lips actually looked a bit pinker than usual, something I loved. And the shimmer particles were subtle. Awesome. My lips healed in two days.

Ingredients, from tube: Sunflower oil, castor oil, beeswax, candelilla wax, lanolin, cocoa seed butter, tocopheryl acetate and tocopherol (Vitamin E), peppermint oil, carnauba wax, rosemary leaf oil. May contain: iron oxide, mica, carmine, or titanium dioxide.

Though you get a small amount of product in one little tube, it lasts long and is well worth the price. All in all, I loved, loved, loved this product and will most definitely buy it again. I highly recommend it. Just don't think that this is a replacement for lipstick. (So ends my first review.)