theNotice: a beauty blog

The product: Burt’s Bees Refreshing Lip Balm with Pink Grapefruit

It’s not okay to eat your lip balm, Rae. It’s not okay. It’s not okay. It’s not okay.

But oh, how I want to! Burts’ (surprisingly tasteless) Refreshing Lip Balm smells incredible – completely evocative of a fresh, juicy pink grapefruit, a bit tart rather than syrupy-sweet. It would be an entirely convincing scent (save for the fact that nature rarely produces anything just this perfectly scented), and the balm itself carries absolutely no synthetic or waxy undertones.

New this April at The Bay (in Canada) and Burts’ online site, Burt’s Refreshing Lip Balm with Pink Grapefruit is 100% natural; free of petrochemicals, phtalates, and parabens. The not-tested-on-animals formula contains key ingredients of beeswax, sunflower oil, coconut oil, and pink grapefruit seed oils (rich in Vitamins C and E).

It moisturizes as well as the rest of the Burt’s Bees stick balm lineup, which is to say: it’s far from terrible, but still not enough for my super-dry lips. If you’re a fan of Burts’ Replenishing (pomegranate), Rejuvenating (acai), or Nourishing (mango) lip balms, though, then you’ll like this one, to – they’re all based on a sunflower seed & coconut oil formula.

Strangely, I find Burts’ un-tinted “fruity” balms to be less hydrating than their tinted ones - the latter tout a formula that’s mainly coconut and vegetable oil, without the sunflower seed oil.

The full ingredients 

The verdict?

Burt, my dear, you and your bees had me at “pink grapefruit.” It’s the one citrus scent that I’m a complete sucker for, whether it’s in a scrub, moisturizer, or delicious buttercream frosting, and finding it in the most recent Burt’s launch was like a Summer dream come true.

Despite not being hydrating enough for me to wear it on its own or as an intensive lip balm, I have still found myself reaching for this over the past little while. It’s alarmingly fresh, and with a price tag that’s less than a latté, you can’t really go wrong. 

At long last – I’ve finally gotten my act together! As promised, here are full-face swatches (honestly, though, what are those called?! I hardly think they can be referred to as “swatches” at this point) of Marcelle and Garnier’s BB creams.

So, without further adieu…

Bare, freshly-cleansed skin!

Marcelle BB Cream Beauty Balm in Light to Medium

For my skintone, Marcelle’s Light to Medium was a good match – darker than I am, but not by too much. I really liked the neutral tone of the product, which did a great job of cancelling out both redness and sallowness, resulting in an overall illusion of evenness and “perfect skin.” (The satin finish is great, too, which also adds to the illusion.)

I was particularly impressed with the way it tackled my undereye circles and the redness I have in my eye area – I probably wouldn’t leave the house without concealer, just on principle, but I’d feel comfortable having forgotten to conceal if I was wearing this.

Wearing Marcelle’s BB Cream (both images)

Left: bare skin / Right: wearing Marcelle’s BB Cream

The weird little box in the left corner is a colour sampling of my skintone – the left side being bare, and the right, with BB cream. For consistency, I grabbed the colours from the same spot on my cheek in both photos. (Freckle-mapping for the win!)

As you can tell from the colour swatches, Marcelle’s BB adds depth of tone to my skin, and has a clever mix of yellow/greyish pigments to neutralize redness.

Garnier BB Cream Miracle Skin Perfector in Medium/Dark

I was less impressed with Garnier’s product, but I wanted to share photos for a very specific reason – I think it would be great as a Prtty Peaushun-like product (but, y’know, for your face.) As mentioned in the review, I was sent Medium/Dark, which really isn’t a match for me. However, it turned out to be great for faking a darker skintone, with results that are still very “real skin.”

As a BB cream in and of itself, though, I was less impressed – I found it left me overly dewy, a bit sticky, and while it did a good job of adding warmth, it failed to counteract redness.

Wearing Garnier’s BB Cream

Left: bare skin / Right: wearing Garnier’s BB Cream

A breakdown (with scribbles!) »

Buy it here. Read more here. Check out other BB creams here.

Review and swatches upcoming; please bear with me, here!

Just in time to get your hands on the first-ever Canadian BB cream, Marcelle is doing free shipping with all orders over $25.00 (before taxes). To make up the extra few dollars, may I recommend their Waterproof Eyeliners, Face Powder, Pressed Powder, and Rouge Xpression lipsticks? ;)

The ingredients

Aqua/Water/Eau,  Cyclopentasiloxane, Octyldodecanol, Dimethicone, Glycerin, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Cyclohexasiloxane,  Isopropyl Myristate,  Bis-Peg/Ppg-14/14 Dimethicone, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate,  Xylitylglucoside,  Cetyl Peg/Ppg-10/1 Dimethicone, Polyglyceryl-4 Isostearate, Hexyl Laurate, Silica, Sodium Chloride, Isododecane,  Acrylates/Dimethicone Copolymer, Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Anhydroxylitol, Xylitol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Lauroyl Lysine,  Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Camellia Oleifera Leaf Extract, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower/Leaf Extract, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Propylene Carbonate, Trihydroxystearin, Talc, Butylene Glycol,  Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate, Phenoxyethanol, Titanium Dioxide, Mica, Iron Oxides.

This product is paraben-free, perfume-free, and hypoallergenic. Please note that it is not silicone-free; however, I’ll do my best to review it anyways.

Marcelle BB cream is available in both Light to Medium and Medium to Dark shades. The airless tube-pump contains 1.5 oz / 45 mL of product, and retails for $22.95 starting today.

The product: prtty peaushun Skin Tight Body Lotion in Medium

Oh, Prtty Peaushun. There are so many things that I could say about you.

When it comes to this “skin tight body lotion,” you more or less know what you’re getting. A lightweight moisturizer, with a bit of colour, and a bit of luminizing. Sort of… a glowy tinted moisturizer, but for your legs.

Simple as it is, though, I’ve been prtty impressed (tee hee, prtty impressed) with Prtty Peaushun. As you might’ve noticed, I’m kind of ridiculously pasty-white, especially in the winter, and it’s a little frightening rather unforgiving on my chunky solidly built legs. So I gave the Medium shade a try, hoping that it would add a bit of colour…

And it didn’t disappoint.

Prtty Peaushun – Medium

Despite looking much too orange coming out of the package, Medium blended flawlessly into my skin. And it really does look like skin – so much so that I couldn’t tell where the line of demarcation between tinted/un-tinted was in the swatch. I ended up taking a q-tip of makeup remover though my swatch patch, just so you could tell what a difference it made (while still looking totally believable).

So, yeah. You could blend your own Prtty Peaushun, and it would have the two major benefits of (i) not being $36, and (ii) not having that “peaumelo” scent, but the one that Bethany Karlyn has produced? Pretty darn impressive.

(On that note: I am never, ever going to get tired of all of these “peau” jokes.)

Prtty Peaushun – Medium, blended in with a thin line of product removed (using makeup remover.)

As a brand, Prtty Peaushun gets two huge thumbs-up from me. Not only is the formula 92% natural and free of parabens, GMOs, phalates, synthetic dyes or fragrances, talc, or animal products, but it’s not tested on animals, and is packaged with as little material as possible. Plus, (and this is the part that I love), the spokesmodel of the brand is the teeny-tiny workout maven Tracy Anderson, not some ten-foot bones-and-skin glamazon.

(She’s shorter than I am! Nobody’s shorter than I am!)

(But, I kid you not, she could beat the crap out of me if she was blindfolded and had both her arms tied behind her back. Girl is fit.)

Surprisingly, I really like the packaging – it’s new, it’s unique, and it’ll allow you to get every last drop out of your Prtty Peaushun. It does take a bit of getting used to, but I haven’t had any accidents getting the product out, and it’s a lot sturdier than you’d expect. I’ve tugged on the plastic doohickey (totally a word; even my spell-check thinks so), squished, squeezed, and chucked, and I can safely say that it’s neither exploded nor sprung leaks.

Availability: you can order your prtty peaushun through their site, on Beauty.com, or at American Apparel. There’s also a store locator on the prtty peaushun site (as well as a list of more online shops to buy through), so it shouldn’t be too hard to come by! Or, perhaps, you can get yours right here…

click to enlarge. more info about the ingredients here.

Keep reading to win a Prtty Peaushun for yourself! »

Look! It’s our first holiday spread! (Actually, it’s our first anything magazine spread.)

Do you like it? Do you? Do you??? Tell me you like it! Tell me you love it! And just – well, let’s not mention the fact that it’s looking extremely washed-out in my Chrome, mmkay? (Google, why do you have to crush all of my hopes and dreams.)

The products

• Burt’s Bees Replenishing Lip Balm Trio, $9.99
• Prtty Peaushun Skin Tight Body Lotion (review later this week), $36.00
• L’Occitane Délice des Fleurs collection (May rose & violet leaf absolutes), $12.00-$48.00
• L’Occitane Délice des Fruits collection (lemon & clementine essential oils), $6.00-$48.00
• NUXE Rêve de Miel, $9.50-$40

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I’ve done just two spreads for the holidays this year (the other will go up tomorrow, hopefully), but let me know what you think! They’re rather a lot of work, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun ;) If there’s interest, perhaps you’ll see a few more next year! And… they’re bound to get better eventually. Right? (This one is rather slapdash compared to Arianne and Jessica‘s!)