The color of this product is lovely. Sheer reddish-pinky-brown with orange/copper sparkles in it. Light fruit punch type scent. Lacks in staying power but thats rather expected of such a product.
Sadly, my lips reacted horribly to something in this. I'm assuming its the spf in it, I have troubles finding a lip product with spf that doesn't bother my lips.
Reg: August 2001 Location: No. California Posts: 8194
Date: June 29, 2005
Rating: 9
Recommend? Yes
Price you paid?: $7.00
Pros:
Rather high-end-y color, SPF 20, very lip-softening
Cons:
A tad expensive for lip balm
Update: 2/12/2006
I just wore this again the other day...I haven't worn it much during the winter. By now it doesn't seem to swivel down anymore grumbles, however it has kept perfectly. The color is still nice and true.
Original review:
Well, I have finally gotten around to trying this. Part of it has to do with a recent visit to a water park and the realization that an SPF lipstick might not be such a bad idea.
There were a few on my to-look-into list (Revlon Moisturous lipstick, TerraTints colored lip balm), but I'd already tried the TerraTints one (it's good) and felt like trying something new. And the idea of a sheer tinted lip balm was more attractive to me than a regular lipstick.
A recent positive review of this product in a different shade by Madjenny made me check out the Neutrogena rack first, at any rate.
I bought 2 of the MoistureShines and priced them at $6 at Target (but they had only 6 out of the 8 shades) and $8 at Long Drugs (full rack but higher price).
Sunny does have a rather sophisticated color for being a $7 lip product. After I'd worn it a few times, it started reminding me strongly of a $14 lipstick, MAC "Jubilee" that I'd worn down to the metal. Taking Jubilee out of its to-be-Back-to-MAC'd baggie, I did a lip-by-lip comparison of the two and found them to be remarkably similar.
They're not exactly the same since Sunny has a skosh of golden shimmer, and is slightly deeper in tone, but owning one, to me, means not needing to own the other.
While I was hanging out at the rack, I jotted down some color descriptions of the other shades as follows:
Pure - this was another tempting shade to me. It's a lightish, neutral sort of beige with some gold shimmer.
Warm - okay I bought this, it's a non-shimmery, somewhat warm (indeed) coral red. It's nice when applied lightly. Put too much on and it morphs into an almost garish cheesy red.
Fresh - deep warm shimmery pink/rose.
Natural - deep peach (but likely, as the rest are, quite sheer so it wouldn't be that deep on).
Nude - one of those reddish-nudes such as Revlon makes.
Sunny - deep red brown with gold shimmer in the tube...on, it's a pink-red-brown fusion, a lips color.
Clean - this appeared to be a lighter version of Sunny.
Glow - I think this was on the rose side, perhaps a deeper version of Fresh.
All in all, I'm pleased with this. For what it is--an SPF 20 lip balm with good pigmentation, reasonably good staying power (there is some transfer, be forewarned), good availability, complex wearable shades, plus 8 to choose from--it probably deserves a 10.
But 10 to me kind of indicates a holy grail product, something you can't see yourself ever living without, perhaps something that nothing else can substitute for...in that regard, TerraTints does make a pretty good tinted lip balm that's SPF 18, and a bit cheaper ($4 at my local health food store).
