I decided to do a review on a lip balm that I just got today
with my recently acquired birthday money and have been super excited to review.
You may know that Nivea has come out with a new line of lip butters. I got a
coupon for a free Nivea lip care product and knew immediately that I wanted to
try one of these out. I was hoping to nab one of the Vanilla Macadamia Nut Kiss
flavors, because it seems like a flavor that would be hard to miss with and I
do love both vanilla and macadamia nuts. When I finally found where the store
had them, the only flavors they had were the original and a single tin of
Raspberry Rose Kiss. The tins were in the skin care aisle, not the lip
products, make up products, front store impulse buy section, or bargain which
are the places I checked first looking for them. I’m a lip balm junkie, so I
figured that I’ll review some of the other lip balms that I have in my purse mixed
in with reviews of other things so you don’t get bored… don’t judge me. We’ll start with the Nivea Lip Butters.
The Raspberry Rose Kiss Lip Butter comes in a rather nice
tin. The lid is pretty tight, which makes me feel safe about keeping it in my
purse, without it being too hard to open. It’s a good size package as you can
see in the picture. It has over half an ounce of product in it, which is a
great deal more than most lip balms. The average tube lip balm size is .15 oz
and this tin has .59 oz in it. It’s a rather cute tin, one of the cutest
packages for lip balm that I’ve seen. My only problem with it being in the tin
package is the hygiene factor. It’s not a good idea to dip your finger into a
product over and over and put it on your mouth. That product will become germ
central very quickly. There are a few things you can do to prevent this,
however. You can use a lip brush to apply this, which is a bit overkill for lip
balms in my opinion. You can try kissing the lip balm as the tin is big enough
*I actually tried it just so I could tell you if it worked*, but you won’t be
able to do that once you hit pan on the product. The easiest and most sanitary
solution is to simply wash your hands or use hand sanitizer before applying it.
Most of us carry hand sanitizer anyways, so I’m not seeing the tin package as a
huge problem for me.
The “flavor” of this lip butter is “Raspberry Rose Kiss.” I’m
rather conflicted on whether I like this or hate it. I love the raspberry in
this. It smells more natural and less like a fake “raspberry” flavored candy
which is what I was honestly expecting. I wasn’t expecting to like the
raspberry aspect of this balm, but it’s my favorite part. The rose aspect isn’t as exciting. I’m not a
huge fan of rose flavoring/scent, but I think that when it’s used to compliment
another flavor/scent it can really bring something to the table. When I was a
kid, my dad used to take me to a Greek restaurant where we would finish the
meal with “Persian ice cream”. It was mostly vanilla flavored with touches of
rose water and saffron. It was absolutely amazing. I was expecting the rose flavoring
to complement the raspberry in the same way. Instead of being a nice back tone
to the lip balm, it is a bit over powering. There is just a touch too much rose
for my liking and it keeps the scent from melding the way I would like. I think
that the raspberry and rose scent profile has a lot of potential, but they don’t
have the mixture quite up to par just yet.
My only other problem with this “flavor” is that it’s not a flavor; it’s
pure scent. I don’t mind this, I just think it’s a little misleading. The
package clearly says on the ingredients list “flavor”, where it should really
say “fragrance.” I’m a bit glad that they didn’t make it flavored. It’s hard to
play up a flavored lip balm as a grown up lip product especially when the flavor
is this complex. This line of lip balms is definitely meant to be a more
sophisticated version of the lip balms we all loved as kids.
I really like the feel of these on my lips. It feels slick
without being too heavy. The first ingredient on the list is petrolatum, which
is basically petroleum jelly, which is great for moisturizing lips… at night.
Pure petroleum is just too thick, slick, and messy. This obviously toned it
down to a wearable level. This “flavor” has a very minor color payout. It’s a
very light, delicate pink that seems to provide more coverage than actual color.
It might show up better on someone with darker lips, but I’m really pale, so
the color is almost exactly my regular lip color. I might make my boyfriend put
it on for a second just to see if there really is much color payout. What I
mean by coverage is that I have a scar on my bottom lip and while this doesn’t
completely cover that, it definitely makes it less noticeable. This also has a
nice shine without it being like an oil slick, which is what I’ve found many to
do. I don’t like the super shiny lip look, so I’m not a big fan of lip glosses.
If you’re looking for something super shiny, this probably isn’t the product
for you. Because it has the petrolatum in it, it would not be a good base to
put lipstick on, but it would make a good balm to put in the very center of
your bottom lip to make them look plumper.
The price of these can get a little steep, but there’s a
really wide margin on the price. I’ve found them for anywhere between $2 *a
BOGO deal* to $6 each. I don’t think I would buy one of these for $6, but I
would probably pay up to $4 for one *especially the Vanilla Macadamia Nut Kiss,
since I’m still dying to try that.* I will definitely be buying these again and
I have a feeling it will become a regular in my purse.
I’m going to start grading each aspect of the products. Let
me know in the comments what you think about my new system.
Packaging- C
Size- A+
Flavor- D
Texture- A-
Look/Performance- A+
Price- B
Overall- B