After suffering for the past 4 months with flaky, dry lips… I’ve finally found my cure. Let me tell you a bit about it…
Lanolips is an Australian brand that proudly produces one of the most natural cosmetic products on earth.
The Lanolips lineup currently includes 2 core products:
~ Lanolips Lip Ointment with Colour 12.5ml (AUD13.95/£8.40)
~ Lanolips 101 Ointment 17.5ml (AUD17.95/£11)
I was sent the range for review consideration over a month ago now and I tell you now without a scrap of embarrassment despite the risk of sounding like I’m gushing…. this stuff has made a big difference to my life.
I could tell you all about how pure and natural the ointments are, I could share the anecdotes about how it’s so safe it can be used on the mouths of new-born babies… but to be honest, you can find all that out by visiting their website. I wanna tell you why from this day forward, I’m never going to be without a tube of this in my handbag.
But let me first concentrate on the Lanolips Ointment with Colour.
These are fabulous lip gloss alternatives. They’re sheer, but the colour is build-able. Thanks to a completely non-sticky formula, you can also apply without fear of errant breezes gluing your hairdo to your face.
The shades:
Rose is a milky-toned soft pink, perfect for paler skin-tones and also works fabulously to tone down bright lipsticks a touch. I feel it may be a little too pale for darker skintones and WOC unless you apply with a light hand or like the super pale look.
Dark Honey is a true dark nude shade, I would imagine this is flattering to all skin-tones – very easy to wear. It’s a “your lips but better” shade for me.
Sunshine is a warm, summery coral. It’s beautiful.. and on paper, is probably my favourite. But unfortunately, it doesn’t flatter my cool skin-tone quite as well as the others.
Apples is described byLanolips as “the colour of babies lips” and I totally get that decription, it’s a rosebud red. I’m afraid it looks a touch warmer in my swatch than in real life though, sorry about that!
There’s also another, newly released shade called Rhubarb which has been described as a deep, vibrant pink, but I don’t have that one to show you.
Scent-less and taste-less, I’ll be using these daily in the Summer when I want something a little lighter, a little more natural and glowy.
The main point to remember with the entire Lanolips range is the core ingredient, the fundamental base upon which all this colour frivolity has been added – the ultra-moisturising Lanolin. It keeps my lips supple and so far is improving tone and texture unlike anything else I’ve tried.
Having sad that, there are still a couple of things that I’d change.
I’d personally prefer a slanted plastic applicator so that I could use the tube to applythe product instead of my finger. I’d also like to see the packaging include the word ‘tint’ somewhere for clarification. The colours look SO bright in the tube, I’d be surprised if there weren’t at least a few consumers who were expecting more colour payoff upon application.
That aside, onto my favourite product!
Lanolips 101 Ointment is the DADDY. It’s the no-nonsense “what you see is what you get” multi-purpose cure-all.
The stand-alone tube, slightly bigger than the rest at 17.5ml, contains nothing but pure ultra medical-grade lanolin. To be (un)fair, it’s kinda boring… it’s unscented, unflavoured, uncoloured, un…inspiring… yeah, it’s a whole lot of ‘uns’.
But it’s this little marvel that I’m marking up as my lip saviour today.
I’m not new to lanolin. I was a big fan of Lansinoh throughout the months I breastfed my baby. Lansinoh saved my poor nips (tmi?) on many occasions whilst me and the babs were still both figuring out what the hell we were supposed to be doing. I’ve even tried to use Lansinoh on my lips before… but it’s too damn sticky. I used to be able to bear it for about 15 minutes before having to grab a tissue and wipe it off. I’ve been told by Lansinoh PR that it’s not as sticky as it used to be, but I only have the experience of my year-old tube to compare to.
Lanolips advise you to use the Lanolips 101 Ointment generously but I haven’t found that I’ve needed to apply it very thickly at all. Which is just aswell, ‘cos I hate that feeling where you’ve got about 8″ of product built up on your lips.
I use the Lanolips 101 Ointment in a number of ways:
1. On my lips before bed as a moisturiser
2. A thin layer underneath lipstick to moisturise and stop matte lipsticks looking like crap
3. A thin layer above lipstick to add shine
4. On Leila’s eczema
5. On my cuticles at night as an intensive moisturiser.
I think out of all those uses, the one that stands out to me… the one reason that I’ll be repurchasing this product for as long as I can get my grubby little hands on it is #2.
Is that shallow? Surely I should choose the fact that it’s a fabulous lip conditioner? Or um… wait, maybe I should have chosen the fact that it diminishes my daughter’s eczema patches… but um… I can wear my OCC Lip Tars without looking like I’ve been mummified!
I can wear my Revlon and MAC mattes lipsticks again – the joy! I’ve spent months trying different lip balms underneath with no success. On the rare occasion that a lip balm has succeeded at keeping my lips smooth, the lippie has inevitably slid off my face after 20 minutes. If anything, as long as I keep my layer of Lanolips nice and thin, it’s almost as if it gives my lipstick something to adhere to!
The cheapest online stockist I can find offering international delivery is MakeUWell who charge 10AUD (about £6) for postage.
Lanolips 101 Ointment *is* my solution. Now I just need someone to come along and stock it in the UK so I don’t have to pay international postage charges. Is that really too much to ask?
