Sparkled Beauty

Hi everyone, how have you been? I bet those of you in the US is having lots of shopping fun. I am having a blast here with pre-wedding preparation, but more on that in another post.

I am very excited today to tell you about the Balmshell products that I was very fortunate to receive for review.

A little background on the brand: Balmshell is a Canadian brand, based in Toronto. My first time hearing about them was (again) when I did my Canadian makeup brands post. I haven't had a chance to try out the product myself (until recently) but I did include a Balmshell lip gloss in a US swap I did a while back and my swap partner - Stephanie - loved it.

The products: Balmshell is known for their lip glosses with great colour options plus the fun gliders/ float art pieces at one end of the tubes. And they recently launched Smear Campaign - the cheek and lip gel stains that are even more exciting.

I was sent a lip gloss in Shopaholic, described as a sheer baby pink, 4 lip gloss samples in Weekend in The Hamptons (sheer taupe sandy beige), Yummy Mummy (sheer pink brown), You Give Me Fever (sheer rosy cheek pink) and either Darling You look Fabulous (sheer hot cherry red) or Ah the Classic (sheer raspberry sparkle), and a lip/ cheek stain in Scandalous Scarlet, a rosy red tint.

The package also included a little pamphlet featuring Balmshell products (in all shades), and 2 individual info sheets for the 2 lines.

Here's the close up on the products (full view and assembled).












The lip gloss has the glider tube that could be un-twisted off the gloss tube and with the key chain piece screwed on top, it would become a beautiful key chain accessory. And the lip/ cheek stain has a hidden anti-bacterial sponge tip in the cap, besides the applicator inside the stain container, which is so cool. I'm totally sold on Balmshell packaging, as you can tell by now.

The ingredients:
- The lip glosses have jojoba oil and lanolin oil for their moisturizing effects, plus they are paraben free with no artificial preservatives. Be noted if you are allergic to these kinds of oil. Also, they are slightly scented, a light sweet vanilla hint that I actually don't mind at all. And they are not sticky with lots of shades to choose from.
- The stains have white tea extract (antioxidant), chamomile extract (soothing) and rose water (pH level control), come in 4 shades.

Here are the swatches in the exact same order as I listed above.

I wasn't sure about the last shade of gloss sample (second last swatch), as I think it's more like a raspberry colour which matches the shade Ah the Classic while the company suggested Darling You look Fabulous. Either way, it is a beautiful colour, my favorite.

Shopaholic (first swatch) is an awesome colour as well, with the young and innocent kinda pink look :-) The only shade that cannot work by itself is Weekend in The Hamptons (second swatch) but it's gorgeous on top of a lip stick.

The stain (last swatch) does what it was designed to do, staining the lips/ cheeks with good staying power (not very easy to remove on my arm, lol). I normally hesitate with sheer lipsticks or lip glosses, as my lips are too pigmented, but I'm actually loving Balmshell. And I'm thankful that the company decided to send me a few extra samples, so I could have a chance to see what different colours would look like on me before dismiss the whole "sheer" concept.

In short, Balmshell has convinced me that their products live up to the rave and I'm so proud that they are Canadian :-) If it would make you believe in the brand even more, from reading Balmshell blog, I found out that Megan Fox was using Balmshell Lip Gloss in Sleep In Beauty in Transformer 2. If you are a fan of Megan's or the movie, this would be an extra reason for you to want to try out these products.

And I have the third reason too: Balmshell offers you, my readers, a code for 15% discount on your purchase on their website (they do ship international): "sparkleb15".

You can also find Balmshell at Shoppers Drug Mart, Murale, London Drugs and Sephora. Stay tuned, as I have a Balmshell giveaway coming up very soon, and everyone (Canadian or international) can enter. Sounds good?