*kendraspondence*

I know you thought that I was done talking about my pregnancy and blah blah blah the baby’s here, Kendra, your ankles aren’t swollen anymore, but evidently your brain is because you keep blah blah talking about your pregnancy. However, this lip balm review just absolutely necessitates that I hearken back to my third trimester when I was compelled to buy everything, go everywhere, and see everyone like I was giving my Last Lecture. Heather B. Armstrong endorsed this lip balm and before she could even say chai flavor sweetness for our lips, I was clicking my paypal SEND CASH NOW to the makers of Organic Lip Balm. And wouldn’t you know that it arrived while the baby bundle was being born! It was so nice because when I arrived home from the hospital, there was this clever little envelope with a pack o’ 3 lip balm containers which sort of reminded me of the mini Altoid compacts, except with a sliding lid. I saved one for Lovey Loverpants’ valentine, and I did give it to him, but I eventually reclaimed it because he said the packaging was too pansy for him to carry in public. I also sent one to CBear who is now in her third trimester YAHOO and the significance of all of this is that I got so mad parched during my c-section that I actually asked the surgeon if she could get me some lip balm. I know you’re thinking, Good one, Kendra, go all Napoleon Dynamite when you’re about to meet your child for the first time, but I was a bit delirious due to the gallons of anesthesia chugging through my bloodstream, and my LIPS HURT REAL BAD. Wish I could’ve glossed some of this smoooove organicness on my lips. The flavors are delicious and while I wouldn’t say the stuff is exceptionally long-lasting, it’s nice to know that it’s made from ingredients you can pronounce, by a real nice little indie operation.

In honor of the passing of poor portley Pavarotti, I would like to promote another wonderful thing to do with one’s mouth other than singing tenor in a lyric opera: wearing lip balm (which is almost as noble). Specifically, wearing C.O. Bigelow’s Mentha Lip Shine. I really know nothing finer when it comes to lasting, minty balm that freshens breath.

Now let me confess, beauties. This is no trade secret. I’m not to thank for discovering this product, even though “discovery” is practically abused as a word these days. I side with David Sedaris. He says that he cannot stand it when others refer to a restaurant as one that they’ve discovered, like Ponce de Leon discovering the fountain of freakin’ youth, when all along the restaurant was listed IN THE PHONEBOOK. You didn’t discover it. It was yours to be discovered. You could have used a map. But you didn’t. However, I like to think myself almost as cool as good old Ponce, now that I’ve got my small tube of youth, otherwise known as Bigelow’s Mentha Lip Shine.

Like I mentioned, though, I didn’t discover it. First, Ellen gave it to me. Then, I told Ellen how wonderful I found this product to be. Ellen told me that she had propagated the love for Mentha, as well, and had all of her co-workers puckering up with their own tubes. Then, I told Eunis, who bought some for herself and her gaggle of girlfriends. Then, just recently, I saw that Jenny (who would *never* set foot in any manner of cosmetics stand!) was rocking Sir Bigelow’s best balm, as well. Clearly this goodness is contagious. What are you sticking around being parched for, beauties? Get hip to the apothecary!

This balm comes in a .5 oz tube, but a little really does go a long way. I haven’t had the contents-under-pressure problem with this one as I have had with other balms (ahem: see also this oozy doozie). Plus, if you are inclined to buy balm for ya man, the nice minty color of the tube is fairly unisex, as masculine as Burt’s Bees, or Chapstick, but with a tasty smell that will keep his breath from stankocity, and that, beauties, is a very good thing.

C.O. Bigelow has a lovely website if you are interested to learn more.

Why must we spell Pink with three “i”s, unless we’re working in roman numerals? Why, also, must I discover, upon landing at Sephora’s website that the price point for my bad, bad impulse buy has just been lowered, making at least a third of my original critique totally obsolete?

Why, again, did I buy this lip balm, anyway?

I’m 26, after all, and just because I have a weakness for sparkley things does not justify the purchase of a $7 lip balm (now $4) whose packaging looks like it was made for a tweenager who carries her lip glosses in a hot pink faux leather slingbag and applies it in front of a foggy mirror at the roller-rink which smells of rubber and stale popcorn.

This impulse buy, rationalized by my desire to bring you a diversity of lip balm reviews, was also a near-necessity as I found myself at the mall, lips totally parched, and my handbag totally without lip lubricant. Piddle! What I should have done was seek out the CVS on the first floor of the mall – which I think is such a clever and useful inclusion among the mall’s occupants, and one which I believe was once a staple in malls (because my mother would buy us candy in the mall drugstore and then smuggle it into the mall movie theatre) once upon a time – and there I should have purchased your basic chapstick for $2.99 to get me through my shopping venture. But no! I had to surrender to the love of the sparkle.

And at this point, I love not even the sparkles, let me tell you.

Sephora brand lip shiiine has brought my cosmetic case nothing but a stickly saline-like mess. I’m not sure if I just squeezed this tube incorrectly and capped it too abruptly and am therefore plagued by that Lip Gloss Under Pressure volcanic eruption everytime I uncap, but this stuff is oozey. It spurts out way too rapidly and the tube, which is kind of waxy, is somehow terribly sticky and quite unpleasant to hold. I had placed it in a plastic bag within said cosmetic case, but now, due to glossy diffusion, the entire bag is a mucky, saline-like mess.

The shine that this gloss provides is quite nice, but not worth the effort of mucking up your hands. The smell is not bad, truth be told. I should probably research what kind of artificial colors and flavors are to credit for this nice smell, but I am far from a scientist, merely a lip balm afficionado, sweet dears, and let me conclude that my affections do not run sticky fingers over Sephora Lip Shiiine.