Balmshell Lipgloss

Well, enough ranting about my dumb day job. The only good thing about it is it pays a salary, and, I suppose, that for now it still exists, seeing as more and more people are being laid off. I could possibly make an offshoot blog and put all my work woes there, but that would be boring indeed.

Back to the Regularly Scheduled Programming...

Here's a very cool product; Balmshell lipgloss. ($20) Apparently they sell this item at Sephora, so it's hardly a newly-discovered secret, but I bought it online and I didn't see it in my local Sephora store. The fun thing about it is that the applicator end is one of those slidey-liquid things like those pens from the 70's. For some reason, when I was a kid I had one with a pinup girl on it, and when you turned the pen upside down, her bathing suit fell off.

They offer several colors, but the one I got is called "You Give Me Fever" and is described as a sheer rosy pink. The illustration features a blonde woman with peach cheeks... when you turn the applicator, a pink heart fills with color and slides over and fills her cheeks with pink. (Click the photo for a larger version.) Pretty cute, although it gets points deducted for not featuring some women of color. (Stila Cosmetics is now featuring illustrations of women of color.) The product comes with a little threaded keychain end cap, so you can take the cute part of the lipgloss off after you finish the gloss and make a keychain out of it. It combines "lipstick" with "toy". In addition to all this design cleverness, the gloss itself is pretty, non-sticky, and smells pleasant! I was pleasantly surprised.

Supposedly, when the economy goes south, lipstick sales remain strong or even increase. They say that a new lipstick is still an affordable luxury that women will treat themselves to while cutting back on other frivolities. So maybe Balmshell has a chance. I plan to get a few more.