L’Oreal’s been dropping balms, baby!
They recently unleashed three new lines of lip balms, each offering a different level of coverage. There are the Balm Nudes for sheer color, the high coverage Glossy Balm Crayons — your tickets to full-on pigment paradise — and the Balm Pops (four of the six available shades shown here) for medium coverage.
First, that’s a lot of lip balm…
Unless you spice them up with lip liner, lipstick or gloss, at some point, some of the shades start to look the same.
At least they do on my pigmented lips, but since my frequently dry, flaky pout can use all the moisture it can get, I can’t help but make crazy Jan Brady eyes whenever I spot a new lip balm on a store shelf.
L’Oreal’s new Balm Pops ($7.99) are pretty cool… Smooth and non-sticky, with a faint brown sugar flavor and scent, they feel a lot like Benefit’s $18 Tinted Lip Balms.
Compared to Benefit’s Balms, though, these are much more pigmented and offer more coverage (similar to the MAC Patentpolish Lip Pencils). The highly moisturizing formula lasts about two hours for me, which is pretty typical for a balm…but not totally ideal.
I really like wearing these with blue or khaki smokey eyes (like what I’m wearing in these pics), where I think the casual coverage and light shine balance well with the dressed up eyes.
PRICE: $7.99 each
AVAILABILITY: Available now in six shades at drugstores, Ulta and online
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: A- (Good deal for the price, but they’re balms, so wear time isn’t one of their strengths.)
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
As someone with crazy dry lips, the words “three new lines of lip balm” are music to my ears. And these ones look really cute, with their softened-square packaging!
(But if they’re $8 USD, I’m betting they’ll be closer to $12 here — and for just two hours’ wear, that’s not great.)
Hi Rae,
Have you ever tried the Lip Oil by Hourglass? When mine are super dry, it’s the only thing that really helps.
Forget the lip stuff, your skin looks GORGEOUS! What are you wearing on your face?
Hi Kim! Thank you! The foundation is Laura Mercier’s Fluide on top of Smashbox’s Pore Minimizing and MAC Prep + Prime Natural Radiance Primers. Cheeks are the new L’Oreal Blur Blush in Soft Peach, Bronzer is from the CC+ Palette by It Cosmetics. Highlighter is BECCA Opal. 🙂 What foundation are you loving these days?
I love tinted lip balms and they always remind me of college days when my Nivea lip balm and I were inseparable! I like Fiery Red here.
MAC Paramount Lipstick reminds me of my college days. Ahh, the ’90s!
I may pick one of these up! Sounds like my kind of formula!
I agree – these look great with your smokey eyes! Two hours isn’t bad for wear time for a balm. Mine never lasts that long because I’m terrible about smushing my lips together. I’m trying to improve but it’s a hard habit to break.
I’ve seen these here and there and would like to try them. However (and this is just random issue unrelated to the actual product), I feel like my local drugstores and supermarkets do not do the best job of displaying new products/collections. The first time I saw these in store over the summer, they were kind of scrambled in with the older L’Oreal Colour Riche balms (nowhere near the “new” sections at the front of the store or aisle caps), and I had no way of knowing it was a new product- I thought maybe it was just repackaging or something? I only have a few drugstore beauty aisles in my area, and even the ones that carry the full makeup lines are making it hella difficult to discern new products from the old! But as a vigilant beauty junkie, I shall keep hunting!
You look even prettier than usual in these pics! your skin looks amazing!
Those seem great. I love stuff like this even though they are a bit summery!