Another birthday present from my cousin I was chuffed to receive this as I'm a big lip balm user, and I do like a little colour on my lips too so this seemed to be a perfect product.

What it says on the website

"A rose-tinted lip balm with SPF 15 created from our legendary benetint. The translucent shade perks up your lip color for a perfect smooth, shiny, rose-colored finish"

The little pot is tiny, very cute and easily carried. It's made of a nice heavy glass and feels a quality product. The screw top lid has a 1950s style lady on it, mine must have been bought just before this was added as it has a plain white lid, I prefer it without someones face on it to be honest. The amount of product you get is also tiny, 6.40g this is less than a similar products for example Carmex lip balm (in a tin) at 7.5g which also has spf 15, though it doesn't have a tint it is only £2.69 compared to £14 for the Benefit balm..

This lip balm smells divine and has quite a strong rosy pong, perfect for a sweetly scented smooch, the taste is barely there but what is there tastes a little like it smells, though not particularly the sort of taste that you would be temped to lick obsessively off your lips.

The texture is lovely quite slick, and not at all gloopy and melts onto the skin straight away, it feels like a light veil over your lips rather than a heavy coat. The colour too is a winner for me, I don't wear red or other vivid colours on my lips, and although this balm looks pillar box red in the pot it takes on a sheer subtle wash of colour on the skin, better than the Benetint alone in my opinion. You can if you like layer this over the Benetint or other 'tints' to give more depth of colour, or over other lip colours to alter them slightly and make them more moisturising.

Vitamin E is the main ingredient which is mentioned by Benefit to promote the balm, it also contains Castor seed oil, lanolin (which doesn't agree with me at all), and beeswax, while nice ingredients they are nothing that can't be found in much cheaper products. I've included a full list of ingredients at the end, taken from the Sephora website, as there are lots of them I thought you might like to take a peek.

The negatives of the product for me slightly outweigh the positives but it's a perfectly lovely balm which gives a nice colour to the lips and for that may outweigh my negatives, mine are are: The price, I could never justify buying such an average product costing for (us) a quarter of a weeks shopping bill. It doesn't last long on the lips, neither the colour or the actual balm/gloss. While it does moisturise the lips it doesn't do it spectacularly well as I'd expect from the price, or any better than some much cheaper products. It also doesn't leave a very effective protective shield on top of the lips like most other lip balms do. The fact that it has a SPF of 15 is not a big selling point these days with most cheap balms having the option of that in their ranges. For the price I would prefer to have a lip brush included or use it in stick form. I love the little kitsch pot, but as the pot is deep and narrow it doesn't allow your finger to rub over the top when you dip it in to collect product for application, so you can end up with red gunk under your finger nails which can be difficult to get out if you're not at home with access to a nail brush. To get at the product as the pot empties I tend to use a nail drawn across the product but so that it collects on the upper surface and not underneath.

I've come across a site offering Benefit products at a reduced price (old packaging or near sell by possibly I haven't used it yet so can't personally vouch for it) it has the Benefit logo as its page head and looks at first glance similar to the Benefit web site, but it doesn't seem to be 'pretending' to be them to fool customers into buying fakes. It's called cheap Benefit cosmetics (www.cheapbenefitcosmetics.co.uk) where this is available for £6.93, but in relation to my reservations above whether these are genuine or fake products I'm not sure, if anyone has used them I'd love to know what you think. This is one product I wouldn't even bother looking for a dupe (duplicate) for, because there are just so many products that offer more for your money with a similar effect.

Although I love the idea of this product for me it just isn't worth the money, and I would prefer to use a tinted Blistex stick.

Ingredients.
Octinoxate (Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate) 7.50% Others: Diisostearyl Malate, Bis-Diglyceryl Polyacylapidate-2, Bis-Behenyl/Isostearyl/Phytosteryl Dimer Dilinoleyl Dimer Dilinoleate, Polybutene, Trimethylolpropane Triisostearate, Tridecyl Trimellitate, Beeswax (Cera Alba), Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) wax, Silica Dimethyl Silylate, Carmine (CI 75470), Fragrance (Parfum), BHT, Geraniol, Tocopherol, Linalool, Hexyl Cinnamal, Citronellol, Benzyl Salicylate.