I've been intrigued by the Fresh lip balms for a while - they're widely raved about on the Blogosphere, and a small part of me just likes the novelty of a metal tube. So in late November, I bit the bullet and bought a sample pack of seven mini lipbalms from their website. Weirdly, I can no longer see this particular set on their website - admittedly, the Fresh website is ballache to navigate - but I think I paid around £44 for it, not including £6.95 postage. It's not exactly a student purchase, I'll give you that.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

 Be honest, who didn't see these and immediately mentally scream 'Pout Polish!' I know I did...


However, though these greatly resemble Pout Polish in their packaging, they're really not the same product once you open the lid. For one, these are far more moisturising than I've ever personally found the Pout Polishes to be. For me (and I can vouch for this, look back under the 'Sleek' tag for all my Pout Polish reviews, I say the same thing) Pout Polishes are a little more moisturising than Vaseline, with a bit of colour. I use them for their colour, not for moisture, because they simply don't give any. These, on the other hand, are really hydrating. They leave my lips feeling nice and soft at the end of a day wearing them.


Even the way they feel on the lip is different from Pout Polishes. Pout Polishes feel like they're going to slide off as soon as you dare to eat or drink - these are comfortably hugging, almost a little tacky, so they stay put a little longer.



The colour isn't bad, either - there's a solid tint when on the lips, which is layerable.
Swatches:

These cost £2 each from Superdrug, which is a good price considering the Pout Polishes are pushing £5 now. :/
All in all, very pleased with this offering from MUA. I'm going to try and collect more as they don't seem to be limited edition!

I have far too many of these.


Electro Peach, Pink Cadiliac, Perfect Plum.




 
I think these, after the eyeshadow palettes (obviously) were some of the first things I'd ever tried from Sleek. Their sheerness meant they were school appropriate. Ah, memories.

That was then. This is now:
 
Starting from left: Sugar May (limited edition), Pink Cadilliac, Raspberry Rhapsody, Electro Peach, Chocolate Kiss, Powder Pink. Middle: Perfect Plum.

It's ludicrous that I have so many of these because I don't even like them that much. Petroleum based products in general don't help my lips, they simply maintain their dry condition until the skin up and peels of its own accord, so I don't really get the 'conditioning' effect that other people rave about with these, and many of them are as sheer as hell so I'm not even getting colour!
 
 
Mwahahaha! Cover your eyes, dirty used makeup in five, four, three, two, one...
 




 
I find a layer of Carmex or a Nivea balm prior to application of these means that I get both conditioning and colour when I wear them.They're ideal for a school day where I can't be bothered with maintaining a strong lip colour and have gone dramatic on the eyes, so lip colour overkill isn't necessary.



Left to Right: Powder Pink, Perfect Plum, Chocolate Kiss, Electro Peach, Sugar May, Raspberry Rhapsody, Pink Cadilliac.

Again, in slightly different light:


On the lips, Perfect Plum is by far the most pigmented (looks like a colour saturated lip gloss, to be honest) followed by Chocolate Kiss. Electro Peach, Pink Cadilliac and Powder Pink are all reasonably pigmented (and they're from the core line) and Raspberry Rhapsody and Sugar May being least pigmented, though somewhat layerable. I guess, as with any product, if you have less pigmented lips then these are more likely to be more visible on you.

I am not joking. This has a silly amount of pictures. If you have a slow, rubbish laptop/PC like mine, please leave because you will be waiting for my pictures to load until your next birthday or something.



Superdrug has set up a dedicated stand for certain GOSH products that I think they're phasing out (or perhaps have all simultaneously come dangerously close to their expiry date, I dunno) and are selling them at half price. So these lip balms come in at £3, and I used my Superdrug voucher for an extra 10% plus my NUS card on top of that to bring it to a 20% discount on the total price. If they had more, I would have bought them - as it stands, I've managed to get back ups for Soft Touch and Kiss, but that's it. I've checked three different Superdrugs as well :(


I can't remember which blogger it was (swear it was A Vain Woman, but after checking her blog it doesn't appear to be) that posted about these initally, but the review was so convincing that I really wanted some. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any (and the price point was a bit steep anyway) so I soon left it alone. Fast forward to very recently, when I discover that they're on sale (so basically free) and all the old memories came flooding back. I slow-mo bounded towards them with an orchestral score in the background, young loves reunited...
 
^The shades I managed to rescue.

Some woman and her kid were in the way of the stand so I (politely) shoved them out of the way and got to work, taking all the unopened ones there. Woman and kid were opening the lipbalms and swatching them on their greasy hands. GROSS. STOP. I don't want to buy that if you've done that with it. Vile.


They're slightly vanilla scented but don't taste of anything.


One of the things that attracted me greatly was the classiness of the packaging. It's so sleek and functional - slips easily into a pocket, makes for precise application - that it looks more expensive than it actually was. These are the poor man's MAC Slimshines. I wanted to invest when MAC brought out Korean Candy but GOSH's Irony is just as good, aesthetics wise. I've renamed it Korean Candy and talk to it softly at night.





Left to Right: 30 Barbie, 31 Passion Pink, 32 Angel, 33 Scarlet (which is not scarlet at all and confused me greatly)

More gratuitous shots of the gorgeous:



Hand swatches!

Left to Right: 30 Barbie, 31 Passion Pink, 32 Angel, 33 Scarlet
Same lip balms in a different light:



Left to Right: 35 Antique Gold, 36 Mocha, 37 Soft Touch, 40 Irony, 41 Kiss

Lip swatches (I did warn you that it was going to be a long one):

30 Barbie
 
Barbie is a sheen finish light pink, leans towards lilac in some lights.

31 Passion Pink

It's passionate all right. Hot pink/fuschia blend! Doesn't go on the lips quite as smoothly as Barbie but feels good and moisturising nonetheless.

32 Angel

Quite similar to 37 Soft Touch, but with a little gold shimmer.

33 Scarlet

Like a darker version of Barbie...probably don't need both.

35 Antique Gold
 
One of the most unique colours in the range, you can tell from the bullet that it has a very fitting name...brown base, lots of gold/green shimmer. More flattering than it sounds!

36 Mocha

A very flattering 'jelly nude' (nice and translucent) on me, it's got a hint of pink in there which keeps it looking lifelike rather than corspelike. I like, I like a lot.

37 Soft Touch

As I said earlier, similar to Angel. A browny/purple/pink type colour, which looks pretty natural on the lips.

40 Irony

My cheapass Korean Candy, this looks orange on other people but coral/peach on me? Can't work that one out. Anyway, this is one of the least pigmented that I own, but it looks so cool in the tube that I can't help but love it.

41 Kiss

Insanely bright, pigmented neutral red! This is one in the line that I'd recommend having a mirror to apply.

These balms leave my lips feeling pretty moisturised, on top of the awesome colour/cool packaging factor. Taking into account the discounted price I paid, win win. Had I paid full price...not so much.

I love tinted balms, but dislike pot/finger application, so to have even more pigmented balms in stick form is exciting to me. GOSH, you have done well with these.

Anyone else seen these on sale?