I'll start this review with a little rant - something that I don't do very often but feel that I need to get off of my chest before I start. While I recognise that it is up to me as a consumer to carefully check the products before I purchase them, there have still been times in the recent months when Lush's 'sloppiness' have led me to buy non-vegan products. Such is the case with this lip tint.
Whenever I pick up something in a shop, the first thing I do is check whether or not it's vegan. If it claims to be 'suitable for vegans', I normally only have a quick scan of the ingredients list for piece of mind and then I'll purchase the product. This is what I did with Sunkissed Lip Tint - only to discover a few weeks after using it that it actually contains beeswax high up in the ingredients list.
The problem I have with Lush is that the first two lines of the ingredients list was hidden under the sticker, and while I could have easily peeled it back to check, the fact that it stated that it was suitable for vegans next to others that only claimed to be vegetarian, meant that I trusted Lush to be right - a factor that I'm finding to be false quite a bit when it comes to their Oxford Street products.
While I recognise that many of the products are still going through the process of being verified by the vegetarian/vegan societies, and this is the reason why most of the products weren't sold with the logos to begin with, there's no excuse for products being labelled as vegan when they're not. I've now purchased three non-vegan products - Sunny Day Anti-Static Hair Detangler, Softy Foot Lotion and this lip tint - all because they were labelled as vegan and I trusted Lush to know the suitability of their products and their ingredients.
So as I've done before when I've accidentally used a non-vegan product, I'll still review it and get something positive out of a negative experience. And as it happens, I really loved using Sunkissed - my first ever experience with a lip tint of this kind.
Containing fresh banana and argan oil, this lip tint is not only great at soothing and moisturising your lips, but it also has a gentle sweet aroma that's not unlike Rose Lollipop Lip Balm. With the inclusion of ground oatmeal and Tunisian neroli to help heal cracks and rid the lips of dryness, your lips are getting a full pamper when you apply this.
What I'm slightly confused about, and this is due to my lack of experience with lip-orientated cosmetics, is that the depth of colour the lip tint creates when applied is very strong and no different to what I would expect from a lip stick. While I assumed a tint would only offer a gentle, subtle colour to compliment that of a lipstick, I was surprised to see that it outshines some of the lip sticks available in regular high-street shops and is strong enough to be used by itself.
Resulting in a sheer petal-pink shimmer, Sunkissed adds a playful but equally sultry colour to the lips. The colour is strong enough to make an impression and would definitely suit a full face of make-up on a night out, yet it doesn't dominate the face to the point where you need heavy make up at all. In fact, I prefer to use this alongside minimal make up and find it's subtle enough to be used throughout the day.
To apply, I find it more effective to use after you've already lubricated your lips with a balm first - Buttered Brazils is my favourite to use in this instance. The tint glides over the skin and creates an even coverage which will then see you through a good many hours, depending on what it comes up against.
On the negative side, it does take a while to settle on the lips, and I found that it was a good 30 minutes before I felt confident enough that it wouldn't wipe away if I was to run my finger along the surface. However, once it's had time to set, it does last a good few hours and the colour stays this vivid during this time.
While I definitely sold on this product, I'll be honest when I say that I don't use lip products all that often. For those that do, I can see this being a very popular addition to their collection as it offers a wonderful colour and has the longevity to boot.
Quantitative Ingredients: Almond Oil (Prunus dulcis), Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Beeswax (Cera alba), Organic Castor Oil (Ricinus communis), Argan Oil (Argania spinosa), Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Titanium Dioxide, Tin Oxide, Sunflower Wax (Helianthus Annuus Seed Wax), Glycerine, Flavour, Cetearyl Alcohol, Fresh Banana (Musa paradisica), Fine Ground Oatmeal (Avena sativa), Cardamom Oil (Elettaria cardamomum), French Lavender Oil (Lavandula angustifolia), Neroli Oil (Citrus Aurantium amara), Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Colour 73360, Colour 45410 Colour 77491 Colour 77947.
Vegan?: No.
2015 Price: £4.95 each.
Year Of Original Release: 2015.
Hi Jen!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about your experience, I too would be pretty upset if I discovered such a careless mistake.
I just wanted to know, are you still taking orders for Oxford Street purchases? I can't seem to find the page you had up a little while back where we could comment. There are just a few things I would love to get and don't see myself ever getting to visit the store (South Africa is really far lol). I don't mind paying in advance too. Please let me know, thanks!
Nabeela
hey! so, it isn't very responsible of them to be so careless with labeling but as far as I know, there's no harm in using beeswax and honey like there is with using most animal products! in fact, it's a good thing to do, considering that bees are endangered animals and promoting beekeeping will help the bee population. but honestly, from what I understand beekeepers have to do regular checks on their bees anyways and removing a few frames of honey and some wax is the least stressful part of that for the bees.
ReplyDeletealso, I don't know about the wax but bees create way too much honey as a precaution, and any responsible beekeeper would have to remove it anyway to make sure the hive doesn't get too crowded, which would create a lot of issues I won't get into. and any beekeeper who removes more honey than the hive can afford to lose is shooting themselves in the foot anyways, since that will kill a lot of the bees.
sorry if this is a mess, I'm not very good at organized thinking. I mostly know about honey but I'm sure plenty of this also applies to beeswax.
but after all is said and done it's a personal decision, of course. I just figure it's good to be informed!
here's a source from an actual beekeeper, that goes more in depth about it. it's a bit rude in my opinion, but I'm pretty sensitive to that, and it does have a lot of good information. http://systlin.tumblr.com/post/108870907325/is-using-honey-bad-it-would-be-hard-for-me-to
Hi there - thank you for your informative post - I was definitely an interesting read and I really appreciate your knowledge on the subject. As you said, it is down to personal opinion and I'd rather not consume or use any products that have been manufactured by animals :) I'm a little bit more concerned by the fact that while this is only my experience of Lush, I know lots of other people who have bought products that have the wrong ingredients list and this makes me think of people with intolerances and allergies - it's dangerous to be so sloppy with labelling when people can experience such horrible side-effects from consuming/using certain ingredients. Thank you for your insight 😀
DeleteYes, I'm allergic to nuts and sesame so I'm always paranoid about accidentally using a lush product with it in. Once in a shop a woman even tried to get me to test out some face mask (I can't remember what) on my hand until I noticed it had a lot of almonds next to the sample and I asked if they had nuts in. I don't think it occurs to a lot of people at Lush that correctly labelling their products is a really important thing!! And this woman seemed quite annoyed with me when I said I wasn't going to let her use it on me because I'm allergic, they're quite pushy sales assistants...
DeleteThat aside, honey consumption is actually very good for the bee population (unlike non-organic milk and eggs which contribute to the harm of animals) and although I respect your personal choice to not use them I personally don't think including honey or beeswax necessarily makes it non-vegan.
That's a terrible story - I really dislike it when someone doesn't recognise the seriousness of allergies and labelling packaging correctly!!
DeleteAs for honey and beeswax - while there may be farms that don't hurt the bees to get the ingredients, veganism is about not seeing creatures as 'resources' - not using them for anything regardless of whether it inflicts any sort of pain. This is why veganism stretches out to things like horse riding because although most riders would claim that they don't actually hurt the animals, they're still being utilised for a human 'need' so it's not vegan. For this reason, these ingredients are non-vegan. If it was just about inflicting pain, I'd eat the eggs from hens I know have been left to properly free range because they've naturally laid that egg, they've not been forced to by anyone! I hope this clears things up 😀
Alright, that makes sense actually. How do you feel about the ownership of pets, in that case? I don't agree with adopting puppies bc there's so many rescue animals that need homes, but I never thought about it in light of the 'don't use animals for human consumption' idea.
DeleteYeah, never considered that at all. I always saw veganism as just trying to prevent animal harm, which is why I've never been too bothered by organic farms that take good care of their cows and chicken in dairy and egg production but that's so interesting to hear. Thanks for sharing that.