Body Shop: Hemp & Vitamin C

I think The Body Shop is becoming as ubiquitous as Starbucks. I'm constantly passing those stores and being assaulted by the powerfully pungent fruity scents that violently escape from their swinging doors. Seriously, walking into one of those shops is like walking into a Perfumania- I can't smell anything for an hour afterward. Nevertheless, I was enticed by the neat, color coded shelves which included displays of lip balm, and for you, intrepid reader, I braved the olfactory onslaught.

The Body Shop has about twenty different lip products in both tube and pot form. The Lip Care tubes are more purpose-oriented, like Vitamin E with SPF, whereas the little tubs range are purely balms in flavors like Golden Apple and Satsuma. I sampled the latter and found them a bit too gooey and fruity and sweet (geez, how many dozens of people had stuck their fingers into that pot of lip balm before I did?..ew), so I grabbed a Vitamin C and a Hemp stick and left before I was tempted to buy guava-infused foot oil.

Price: $5.00 a tube. I guess that's the price you pay for the Body Shop logo. Swanky!

Glide: Rather good. Smooth, non-oily, comfortable.

Appearance: Pretty standard. Each has a really long, detailed label that's been curled the tube around several times so you can unfurl it to read all the ingredients in several languages.

Flavor/Smell: The Vitamin C stick smells just like a fresh-peeled orange. Delightful. It's even the tiniest bit sweet, but not in an obtrusive way. The Hemp stick smells like...well, like something you left at the bottom of a bowl. You know the kind of bowl I'm talking about. If you don't, then maybe you never went to college. It doesn't taste much like anything (thank God), but if you're not into "earthy" smells then it's not for you.

Lasting Power: Excellent. The balm absorbs well and leaves the lips feeling moisturized and insulated from the cold. I can see using the Vitamin C one a lot in the winter to fend off winds and to boost the old immune system.

Product Plusses: Non-petroleum, Vitamin C has SPF 15, Hemp has a certain level of kitsch value. Ingredients (not including active SPF ingredients) are mostly all natural and include a coconut/olive oil + beeswax base and natural flavors and fragrances.

Not bad, The Body Shop, not bad. 4.5 out of 5 tubes.


*Update: I forgot to add that The Body Shop has a special vanilla mint Speak Out Lip Care Stick. One dollar from every sale goes to the National Domestic Violence hotline, the phone number of which is on the label of every stick. Great cause. There's also a section on the information parts of the lip balm pages about how the beeswax and olive oil ingredients help the communities and local environments of the countries from which they're derived.