No badgers were harmed in the making of this review (Badger Lip Balm)

Member Name: PyrettaBlaze

Product:	Badger Lip Balm
Date:	06/01/08 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Works beautifully, lasts very well, natural, not tested on animals, value for money

Disadvantages: Some flavours smell very strong, seems pricey at first

Badger balms slogan is "powerfully pure body care" which just about sums up their products...made from natural ingredients, and not tested on badgers (or any other animals for that matter). I tend to use Lush for most of my beauty products, but I find their lip balms a tad gritty, so I prefer to use Badger balm.


About the Badger company

Visiting the web site, badgerbalm.com, they state that their principles involve not harming the environment, trying to run a responsible company, and having fun. They use 100% natural ingredients, more than 70% of their ingredients are also organic, they dont test on animals and they are committed to evaluating the sustainability of the products they use. All very well and good, although I couldnt find why they named the products after badgers!


The Lip Balms

Badger balms come in the following flavours:

Chai Rose

Cinnamon Bay

Ginger and Lemon

Highland Mint

Lavender and Orange

Tangerine Breeze

The balms come in 21gram tins, which look slightly larger than your average lip balm tin (using the tins of Vaseline as an example), which can no doubt be recycled, and smaller push-up lipstick type tubes, which I have yet to find on the shelves (but no doubt are less environmentally friendly anyway.

The tub features a cute and smiley badger holding some kind of fruit in his paws, surrounded by the the badger logo in a coloured circle. Its cute and quirky packaging, the sort of thing that might appeal to a kid or your inner hippy. Not particularly sophisticated but everyone speaks so well of this brand of product that I don't think it really matters, and the cute wee badger fits in nicely with their all-natural image. The reverse does not contain the leaping bunny symbol (the sign for animal friendly cosmetics) however a quick glance of the full ingredients list concludes that unlike many companies badger does fulfill its all-natural claims (organic olive oil, castor oil, beeswax, organic aloe and essential oils are at the top of the ingredients list). Its nice to look at a product that has the latin names for plants rather than gammahydroxybutylatedmince....

Boots charge £3.99 for a tub of Badger Balm, which is fairly expensive to the £1.99 Natural Collection ones (of course the advantage with Badger Balm is that it IS natural, rather than just saying it is) or £2.49 for Carmex Lip Balm, or a mere £1 for the Vaseline lip care tins. Its worth noting that the Carmex tins contain a mere 7g and the Vaseline tins contain under half of the contents of the tins of Badger Balm however.

Now for the smellies. I have tried Highland Mint, Ginger and Lemon, Lavender and Orange and Tangerine Breeze Badger Balms, so far the other scents have eluded me. The Badger Balms smell distinct from the usual chemically scented cherry sweet brands of lip balm you can buy, and it takes some getting used to. For example, the Ginger and Lemon has such a sharp, non-edible scent that you wonder if it can do the lips much good...its more the kind of product you might want to put on your body rather than your delicate wee lips. A lovely smell in itself but from the smell itself you'd think the product might dry your lips out. Highland Mint too has a very sharp smell. Tangerine Breeze and Lavender and Orange have more lip-friendly scents, but whats refreshing is that Badger Balm always smells like what it says its smells like...natural essential oil mixes, rather than sweetened chemical rubbish.

If you can get past the sensation of applying ginger and lemon on your lips, you will be pleasantly surprised. Badger Balm is very solid, not gloopy like Vaseline and not prone to melting in the heat...leave it in a pocket and it will come out in the same state it went in. Its solidity ensures that it will last well too. It is smooth and creamy to apply, the texture is exactly like Vaseline but harder. Unlike a lot of natural lip balms it isnt gritty and the texture is consistent throughout. I find the variation in natural products a little off-putting sometimes, but Badger Balm applies exactly like all its chemical competitors. It feels smooth and pleasant on the lips, the sharper fragrances like mint and ginger and lemon make the lips tingle slightly but in a pleasant way.

I must be more prone than most people to cracked lips, and a lot of lip balms dont do much for me, but Badger Balm does. Regular applications have worked wonders with my chapped winter lips and I'm now pleased to report they are smooth and kissable. As an added bonus, I am one of those people who tend to lick lip balm off their lips when it tastes of something sweet, but Badger Balm has no flavour at all really so I'm not tempted to do that!

At first you can be put off by the price of the product, £4.00 for a lip balm can seem excessive, but given the size of the tub and the fact that the product stays really solid, Badger Balm lasts absolutely ages and is well worth the money. Give it a try instead of your usual Vaseline or Nivea, its well worth the extra, and better for the badgers too!

Summary: Its not made from badgers...