A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

U.S. brand theBalm is now available online at Cloud10 Beauty, and its arrival has brought the latest, much-sought after addition to the brand’s revered “Manizer” range of powder highlighters to the UK.  The new Cindy-Lou Manizer sits comfortably alongside the franchise with its rose-toned hue and familiar finely-milled, softly-textured finish.

The packaging, featuring a blonde pinup lovely with porcelain skin, suggests that this latest member of the family is aimed at filling the gap left by its counterparts, a much-needed pinky highlight for those who may struggle with the warmth of the Mary-Lou and Betty-Lou Manizers.

This is exactly what it does, but cool-toned, pale-skinned girls might not be getting quite what they hoped for from this new addition, so read on and be under no illusions!

theBalm’s Cindy-Lou Manizer is gorgeous, let me make no bones about it.  The texture is sublime, the highlight-effect is subtle but true and the new shade delivers a stunning rose-gold hued highlight that sits beautifully alongside a warm blush.

My only problem with it is that it just doesn’t fill that highlighting franchise gap that I was talking about!  Of course, this just means that theBalm will have to release yet another shade to appease my highlighting-taste (shame!) because personally, my skintone needs something with a cooler, more silvery-undertone.  Don’t be looking at this one (as I did) and thinking, “oh! it’s a pink-toned highlighter, perfect for me!”, because it’s just too pigmented and warm in hue to be a universal highlight on my skin.

Not that I can’t make great use of it… with a touch of care about which blushes to pair it up with, I’m loving a light sweep across my cheekbones, it’s a beautiful highlighter and if you favour a warmer blush, you absolutely need this highlighter in your collection.  If you’re a cool-toned girl who leans toward the dolly-side of pink… just double check that you’ll be able to get the most out of this before purchasing.

theBalm’s Cindy-Lou Manizer is priced at £16.00 and is available to purchase online from Cloud10Beauty.com, I’m hoping they get the instain blushes in next!

* press sample

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The thoroughly lovely Annabella from SkinScrubs kindly picked this up for me from her local T.K. Maxx, I’ve been wanting it for quite a while and was really pleased when I finally got to lay my grubby hands on it!

The packaging is kinda cute… I guess… I dunno, I think I’d prefer a scantily-clad fella on it.  Actually, I don’t really give a shit if I’m honest.  The cardboard housing it comes in is thankfully solidly-constructed and has already survived a clumsy drop.

It looks scarily orange in the pan… a pink/bronzed orange.  My kinda nightmare.  Thank heavens for blogs and swatches that have shown me not to fear the Hot Mama!

Texture-wise, this blush is quite beautiful.  It’s silky, smooth and doesn’t create masses of dust when I pass my brush over the surface though it is quite soft and easy to nick with a fingernail.  It’s shimmery without being glittery unlike it’s famous dupe counterpart; NARS Orgasm which has a fine textured amount of glitter running through colour.  The shimmer in The Balm’s Hot Mama! may be a little too much for those of you with particularly large pores though, definitely something that needs considering.

The Balm’s Hot Mama! wears a little pinker than NARS Orgasm on my skintone but the simillarities are plain to see.  The swatch above shows one swipe from Hot Mama… the NARS Orgasm swatch took a few goes to build up to that intensity.

I love both… they’re sheer but incredibly buildable and probably some of the easiest to wear blushes I own.  I can pair these with any look and it just gives me a flush of colour that brightens up my NW15 skin.

I would say that I get an extra hour or two wear from the NARS and the cardboard sleeve surrounding Hot Mama! is a bit finickity to remove and replace everytime I want to use it… but it does have such a delightfully blendable texture.

You get just over 7g of product from The Balm, compared to 4.5g from NARS and unless you can spot one in your local T.K. Maxx, Hot Mama! will set you back around £15 in the UK.

Are you a shimmer, glitter or matte girl when it comes to blush?

Now, I’m not usually into brand bashing but how about an original idea TheBalm?

A).  Batter Up is a stupid name.

B). Adding the words Creaseless Cream to the title? Oh HAI Benefit…

C). I get that you’re a quirky brand from San Francisco too already…

D). You could have redeemed yourselves by leapfrogging Benefit and going all out on the colour shades…

did you?  DID YOU?

No.

No, you didn’t.

Lame.

Having um said that, I think I’ll still probably try one at some point…. yano, just to satisfy my cream eyeshadow addiction.  Yeah, I’m lame too.

Though… perhaps not if the retail price of £18 (they’re $18 in the US) is to be believed… £18?!  For a TheBalm *insert stupid name* Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow that may or may not be as good as a £14 Benefit Creaseless Cream?  On yer bike.

Big thanks to the lovely Shifa from Get Gawjus for guest reviewing this for me, go check the lovely lady out!

I am probably the best guinea pig to test Lip Balms on, as even besides exam stress I have this annoying habit of constantly biting my lip – Yikes!  But for some reason they do seem to recover somehow depending on which Lip Balm I use.

Here we have a super cute Balm ‘to the rescue’ which also happens to be a vegan lip treatment.  It contains some interesting ingredients such as Jojoba, Shea Butter,  Castor Seed Oil, Cocoa, Olive Oil and Peppermint Oil.
Hence it does smell of peppermint but only on a sniff!  Nothing strong as such.

Another unusual thing I found with this is due to some contents, maybe Castor Oil, it does freeze at slightly lower temperature and becomes rock solid enough to be able to scrape product out of it.  Also on a ‘hot’ London day I dipped my finger into it and it was literally  of an oil-like consistency.

So you have to be careful with storing this and keep it away from extreme climates.  I haven’t noticed such changes in consistency with other drugstore lip products like Carmex and Vaseline though.

Coming to the moisturizing effect, to me it delivers almost nothing!  It is just as ordinary as any other lip balm in the market.  It does not mend my lips like the Body Shop Lip Butter used to in a couple of hours.  It sinks in unlike just sitting on the lips like Vaseline.  The effect disappears within a few hours but it does leave me with soft and supple lips.
The packaging is a winner all the way.  A huge compact with a full sized mirror is quite refreshing for a lip balm.  I love to carry this with me and apply it throughout the day as I don’t tend to wear any other lip products.

Overall, I don’t hate the product but haven’t developed a profound love for it either.  I would not recommend it to those with extremely dry, flaky lips as it won’t mend them as well.  But I can definitely see this work with those with normal-dry lips or if you don’t mind splurging on high end lip products.

You can get this for £10 from Zuneta and all net proceeds from this product are donated to Pug Rescue, so this is a great cause you will indulge in but I can’t guarantee if it will ‘rescue’ your lips for sure.