Pookie: Apookalips (Mint & Vanilla)

I came across the Pookie site while searching for something non-lip balm related (what?!). Looking at the press page, I wonder how I've never heard of the company given how many magazines it's been featured in over the past few years. Pookie is the creation of two enterprising NYU grads who turned to making their own lip balm when they found themselves dissatisfied with mass market balms. The company moniker, say the girls, is the "perfect name for the only product you practically kiss". Pookie found donates a portion of the proceeds from every one of their lip balms to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the nation's leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization. How lipbalmthropic.

Price: $8.00

Glide: Ideal. Soft but not squishy, firm but not hard, smooth but not greasy.

Appearance: Big, fat cobalt blue tube with the height and width of a glue stick. I think the other Pookie varieties come in regular-sized sticks and tins, but this one is like a freakin' night stick. I think I could fend off a mugger with it if I had to. Not the most convenient tube to cram into your hipster skinny jeans ("is that lip balm in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"), but the benefit to such a large tube is that it's extra comfortable to apply. Also has an advancer towards the top of the stick instead of at the bottom.

Flavor/Smell: Unsweetened but with a strong, refreshing and soothing vanilla + mint. I could smell it all day.

Lasting Power: Gangbusters.

Product Plusses: Natural ingredients (avocado, coconut, sweet almond and apricot kernel oils; shea butter).

An excellent balm with a great, long-lasting scents and moisturizers, although slightly unwieldly. This is definitely a bedside stick. 4 out of 5.