C.O. Bigelow Lip Butters

Earlier this season, C.O. Bigelow added a series of lip butters to their extensive lip balm selection.  For those who shop at The Body Shop, these lip butters will look very similar to those classics from this company.  I love the Mango Lip Butter from The Body Shop so I was very interested in this version from C.O. Bigelow.  C.O. Bigelow has made some of my favorite lip glosses (Mentha line) and moisturizers (Rose Salve) over the past few year so I get very excited every single time that they release a new product.  I have been using the Rose Salve for years every winter since my lips get so dry and chapped and this is the best formula that I have ever found to soothe them.  However, the new Lip Butters come in both Coconut and Mango!  I love these scents and would love to take the fragrances from summer into the winter.  These products really remind me of the lip treatments from The Body Shop...even down to the fragrances, all of these are classics from The Body Shop....

This new formula is waxier and less soft than the Rose Salve, waxier formulas usually stick on the lips longer and help to protect them when they worn outside in cold winter air.  My lips get really bad in the winter months so anything that can help protect them when I go outside is needed.  I am thinking that I can use the soft Rose Salve formula at night to really hydrate and this waxy formula to help protect in the daytime.  "Our new C.O. Bigelow Lip Butter is infused with intensely hydrating ingredients that offer comfort and moisture to dry, damaged lips.  It leaves lips soft, smooth, and deeply conditioned.", states the Bath and Body Works website. 

This formula is offered in four new fragrances; Coconut, Mango, Cocoa, and Shea.  The Coconut and the Mango promise to be my favorites of the collection since I love both fragrances and the Cocoa Butter is one that I will skip over since I am not a fan of the natural scent of cocoa butter.  I wasn't aware that shea butter has much of a natural scent since I already own a pure shea product and it has little to no natural scent. 

The Coconut Lip Butter is described as a "creamy rich coconut flavor" and it smells lovely indeed.  It is a true, rich, warm coconut scent that reminds me of the summer months and the beach.  I was really considering buying this one but I decided to try only one to begin with and decide how much I liked the formula before I bought several of them.  The debate was really between the Coconut and Mango and the Mango won out since I have less choices for a natural mango scent.  The Mango is the product that I bought, it is a "tropical, refreshing mango flavor".  It is the perfect natural mango, both sweet and crisp.  I love this scent and was so excited that I could find it somewhere other than just The Body Shop.

The Shea Butter product has next to no natural scent, this wasn't my favorite of the bunch and was an easy choice for me to skip over.  "A nourishing, rich shea flavor" is the description on the website but it has little to no fragrance.  However that is what I have come to expect from natural shea so I wasn't disappointed with the fragrance, this is light enough to make it a great choice for someone who wears no makeup or a man that needs help with his chapped lips.  The Cocoa Butter one smelled awful and I actually liked it even less than I thought that I would, this one didn't appeal to me at all and will completely be skipped over.  It is a "comforting, rich cocoa flavor", this one just smelled slightly sour and wasn't for me.

I wanted to love these Lip Butters, I really really wanted to love these Lip Butters and make up reasons to buy both the Mango and the Coconut.  However, this formula just didn't work out for me, I much prefer the Rose Salve formulation and the less waxier texture.  This texture was hard to apply and didn't spread as well as I would have liked on my lips.  I had more issues than I would have liked in spreading it and it actually made my lips worse to begin with.  The texture didn't hydrate as well as I would have liked, it would be better in a stick formula to spread and apply.  I bet that it will help protect my lips but it was so hard to work with that I would prefer to find another formula that comes in a stick instead of a pot.

photo courtesy of Bath and Body Works