Product Lust: Bonne Bell Lip Smackers Jell-o

It's un-PC, but I love Lip Smackers by Bonne Bell. I don't care if they are petroleum-based and don't stay on my lips long enough to moisturize. The flavours are tasty and they make my lips have a sheen without being shiny. I dare say I'd take the mighty Dr Pepper Lip Smackers even over my beloved MAC Lipglass.

I just found out they offer Jell-O flavours. Holy crap, that's awesome! Must have, especially Lime! After all, who doesn't love Jell-O? That bouncy. shiny, tasty stuff.

As kids we played with it constantly, and didn't get in trouble, which made it better. It was sort of the point! It was an inexpensive treat when times were tough, and we could stuff ourselves full without Mom worrying about us overeating.

We made homemade Jell-O with extra gelatin mixed in to make Knox Blox at sleepovers. We bounced them off walls, each other, and the basement floor. Don't worry, we didn't eat those ones!

My first cooking experience was with Jell-O. It had heating, mixing, timing and serving, so it was cooking to me. I made layered Jell-O with fruit for a tea party. What can I say, I was ambitious. I was going to be the Julia Childs of Jell-O!

The first recipe was an unmitigated failure. The first layer hardened too much. Some of the fruit juice from the canned fruit cocktail dropped in the pan, which made the second layer too watery, so it didn't harden enough. The result was like trying to eat spaghetti sauce off a waterbed.

Still, I never lost my taste for it. I even liked to lick the Jell-O powder like homemade Lik-M-Aid (remember those?) while I read late at night in my bed. So bring on the Lip Smackers!

Product Review: Carmex vs. Prairie Dawn Natural Lip Balm

Dammit! I'm hideous again! I have another cold sore!

As sufferers know, sometimes the little buggers come one after another. This one is on the other side of my mouth. I HATE when this happens. I only get cold sores on the left side of my mouth, and this monster tag along is bigger than that last one. I HATE when this happens.

So, since last time (less than a month ago!) I gave you information on cold sores and the treatment I like the best. This time, I'll discuss what to do with the rest of your lips.

Whenever you have a cold sore, it's tricky to keep the rest of your lips moist. You want to lick them because they feel misshapen and dry, so you end up drying them out even more. Wetting your lips and the cold sore dries it out and makes the sore more likely to crack and take longer to heal. So the important thing is to use a lip balm. I tend to choose between two kinds of balm: a balm that tastes bad or a balm that tastes good.

My choice for lip balm that tastes bad is Carmex. Introduced in 1937, it contains methol and phenol to disinfect and cocoa butter to moisturize the lips. Ounce for ounce, I find it works better at softening lips over every other lip balm. The active ingredients are camphor, menthol, phenol, and salicylic acid.

Carmex works well to keep the whole lip soft when the cold sore is healing and doesn't interfere with other treatments. It's not tested on animals, and it works really well to plump your lips while they heal. Best of all, it has no expiration date. I keep a jar marked "CS" just for when I have a cold sore, so I don't mix it up with other jars.

The taste is... well... camphor. It is available in other flavours (strawberry, mint and cherry), but I find that the mediciney taste is still noticeable. I don't mind it so much, but I wouldn't call it good tasting.

Now, for tasty lip balm that works well, I use Prairie Dawn Natural Lip Balm. Listen to this ingredient list:

• Jojoba oil (Organic virgin cold pressed & unrefined from the Sonoran Desert in Arizona)
• Virgin cold pressed castor seed oil
• Alberta beeswax
• Unrefined wheat germ oil
• Vegetable glycerin
• Virgin unrefined coconut oil extracted from the milk of the coconut
• Avocado oil
• Pure essential oils

This lip balm comes in four flavours:

• Sweet Orange
• Lime
• Peppermint
• Black Licorice

Prairie Dawn is really delicious, and it's extra moisturizing. It feels silky and rich on your lips, and because it uses essential oils to flavour, the flavour is completely realistic. Lime tastes like lime, and licorice tastes like licorice. It leaves a nice sheen that isn't too glossy, but lasts for a long time.

So when your lips are really feeling yucky, treat them to something that makes them feel good and fixes them.

Product Review: Avon mark. Shine Tubes Hook Up Lip Gloss

Lip gloss. Yay! Always something new out there to try. Easy to layer over lipstick for a whole new look. Flavoured so you are sweet and tastier than usual. What's not to like about lip gloss?

Well, lots of them have no staying power, to the point where some are even runny. I'm always trying new lip glosses to find ones that stay put, but my biggest disappointment is when I find a colour I really like and it won't hold. I'm always finding little gems, and since most lip gloss isn't too pricey, it's a way to experiment and stay frugal.

I like Avon products. I can order them from a sales rep and give a girl some side cash, or if no-one I know is selling it, I can order it online. The prices are always fair, and they do a good job of staying current. While some of my friends think of Avon as higher end, I consider Avon products to be on par to drug store brands. This isn't a bad thing (it's not like they're dollar store quality), but they don't compare to high-end boutique products. At these prices, how could they?

I don't have a friend selling Avon right now, so I grabbed a flier at the last women's trade fair I attended and put down the name of a local representative on my online order. I thought it would be nice to gie her the commission. I wanted to bump up to the next freebie level, so I needed to spend another $12. I decided to try the mark. Shine Tubes Hook Up Lip Gloss in Crème Caramel. At $7 it seemed like a bargain, and you can combine it with a mark. connector (free with every two purchased) to make a little portable two-piece set. I added the mark. Crystal Shimmer Hook Up Powder (a review for another day) and hit my upgrade level.

The order arrived at my door within a week, complete except for the mark. connector. The lip gloss came in a cute little tube and was a pretty raspberry colour. Not what I consider Crème Caramel, but pretty enough to keep. I was sort of glad since I'd ordered another lipstick that was a mocha colour. This meant I didn't order two similar things.

Well, it was pretty in the tube, and it was pretty on the lips. It tasted like berries and was very sweet. The shimmer in it was nice; bigger flakes but not crazy-big. However, it was really sticky, and it only lasted about 10 minutes before it vanished into nothing. The flavour also turned out to be pretty strong, because I could smell it the entire time I was wearing it; even when the colour was gone. The colour looks nice layered over another colour, but forsuch a dark colour in the tube, it thins out to almost nothing on the lips.

The tube was small and worked without the connector, but at $7 was not the typical good deal you expect from Avon. I called the rep about the connector, but after playing phone tag with her for two weeks I gave up trying to get the doo-hickey. Since I wasn't carrying it around anyway, it didn't seem worth my time.

Overall, it wasn't a great purchase. I won't try Avon mark. Shine Tubes Hook Up Lip Gloss again.

Product Review: Avon Glazewear Liquid Lip Color

I love to wear lipgloss. I like that it makes my naturally thin lips appear fuller, and I find it's the best way to keep from chewing my lips until they are corrugated and sore. I unconsciously think that I'll ruin my pretty makeup and stop chewing. I am a lip-presser, though. I roll my lips and press the colour right off them.

Wearing ChapStick as a kid was my lips' best defense against myself. Mind you, they make such tasty flavours that it almost works the opposite way. When I discovered they still made Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers, I nearly lost my mind.

It's a tricky challenge to find lasting lip colour that doesn't dry my lips out even more. Most of the lipcolours marketed as long-wearing are either really hard to apply or really drying. The opposite end of the spectrum is that products that are shiny are often sticky and feel gross.

Avon has a nice gloss in Glazewear Liquid Lip Color. It's shiny, has decent staying power, and is enriched with Vitamins A, C and E. It has a nice, light cocoa flavour and goes on creamy, not streaky. It starts out a little sticky, but in about five minutes it's set and just has the sheen without the stick.

I especially like the Chic Mauve. It's nearly the same as my natural lip colour, but it gives a rosier hue to them and a little sparkle. Right now they are cheap-cheap: only $2.99 on the Avon.ca website.

Product Review: MAC Viva Glam VI SE

Okay, so I admit it. I'm a MAC whore like most of my friends. :) I loves me some MAC. The colours are rich, the face products are great colours and fine quality. And I love lip gloss, and I love MAC Viva Glam VI SE.

Forget how groundbreaking the program is; the colour is stunning. I prefer cool tones, and love silver and taupe. This colour is great over another colour, and I love how it looks against my skin.

All I can say is: get it!