burt's bees

Butter Before Bed? You Betcha! If It’s Burt’s Bees Ultra Conditioning Lip Balm with Kokum Butter

August 21st, 2011 by Karen 19 Comments

Burt's Bees Ultra Conditioning Lip Balm

Do you have any bedtime beauty rituals you like to do right before you hit the haaay? I have a few. First, I slather lotion all over my crocodilian hands and feet. Then, I slip on a soft, stretchy headband (because I can’t fall asleep if I can feel my hair all over my face) and apply a moisturizing lip balm.

A Burt's Bee Speaking of balms, I’ve been cheating on my go-to Clinique Superbalm lately with the new Burt’s Bees Ultra Conditioning Lip Balm with Kokum Butter ($4).

Superbalm will always have a special spot on my nightstand, but sometimes you just gotta have variety, ya know?

Burt’s new colorless lip balm is 100% natural, cruelty-free and contains some interesting ingredients. Along with the usual balmy suspects like shea butter; cocoa butter; and sunflower, coconut and olive oils, it also has something called kokum butter. I’d never heard of it before, but apparently it’s derived from the seeds of the Garcinia indica tree, a plant indigenous to western India and believed to have some medicinal properties, although I couldn’t find much on the benefits of its use topically.

Ingredients: cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, olea europaea (olive) fruit oil, helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed wax, persea gratissima (avocado) oil, olus (vegetable oil, huile vegetale), cera alba (beeswax, cire d’abeille), sclerocarya birrea seed oil, soybean glycerides, theobroma cacao (cocoa) seed butter, garcinia indica seed butter (kokum butter), butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter, butyrospermum parkii (shea butter) unsaponifiables, cymbopogon martini oil, citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) oil, salvia sclarea (clary) oil, tocopherol, myroxylon pereirae (balsam peru) oil, vanilla planifolia fruit extract, illicium verum (anise) fruit/seed oil, cananga odorata flower oil, glycine soja (soybean) oil, citric acid, geraniol, linalool, benzyl benzoate

Whatever kokum is or isn’t supposed to do, I’ve been applying the balm before bed every night for the past week and waking up the following morning with soft, smooth lips.

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The Buzz on Burt’s Bees New Honey & Shea Sugar Scrub Is Good

August 16th, 2011 by Karen 70 Comments

How sweet. 🙂 Burt’s industrious bees made us a new scrub, and like his fabulous Cranberry & Pomegranate one, this one’s also 100% natural.

If there hadn’t been a warning on the side of Burt’s Bees Honey & Shea Sugar Scrub ($13 for an 8-oz. tub) stating that it’s “Not a food — do not consume,” I would have spread some on my toast.

Doesn’t it look delicious (a little like apple sauce)? And I think it smells yummy, too — fresh and light, like raw sugar and honey.

Following in the footsteps of its Cranberry & Pomegranate predecessor, which I first fell in love with a year ago this fall, Honey & Shea wasn’t tested on animals, and it doesn’t contain any parabens, phthalates or petrochemicals. I’d been turning to Burt’s rich, moisturizing Pomo-Cran scrub whenever I needed to get my exfoliation on, but as much as my dry skin loves the hydrating heavy oils it contains, I know it’s not for everyone.

Would this Honey-sweetened recipe work just as well for me while perhaps appealing to a wider audience? I took it into the shower this week to try and find out.

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These $7 Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balms Are The Bee’s Knees

February 25th, 2011 by Karen 64 Comments

Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Pink Blossom on lips

Burt sure keeps his bees busy! Their latest creation, a concoction of 100% natural ingredients, gives a soothing sheer tint to lips.

Available in six sheer shades ranging from pink to red to neutral, these Tinted Lip Balms ($7 each) moisturize and nourish lips with soft flower waxes, shea butter and added vitamin E.

What the Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balms DON’T contain: phthalates, parabens and sodium lauryl sulfate

The ones I’ve been wearing lately are peachy Tiger Lily and Pink Blossom. Both feel smooth, light and non-sticky on my lips, and I dig their light, sweet raspberry flavor and scent.

Burts Bees Tinted Lip Balms packaging

Burts Bees Tinted Lip Balms tiger lily pink blossom
Pink Blossom (left) and Tiger Lily (right)
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Be a Dear, Burt, and Thank Your Bees for Me: I Love Burt’s Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme

December 27th, 2010 by Karen 47 Comments

You remember Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, right? My cuticles fell madly in love, and because they loved it so much, I’ve been interested in trying more of Burt’s hand products.

I picked up their Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme ($9) the other day on a whim. I was at Target at the time, buying toilet paper because I can’t trust El Hub to do it anymore (he always gets the cheap stuff that feels like sandpaper), and spotted Burt’s familiar packaging.

This thick, moisturizing cream, which feels almost like a salve (read: REALLY thick, like cold butter), has been around for a while as part of Burt’s permanent collection. It’s made from all natural ingredients, stuff like sweet almond oil and aloe, and has a light almond fragrance that’s easy on my sensitive nose.

It takes a little longer to absorb than a your run-of-the-mill hand creams, but my paws just love this stuff to pieces. I can hear them let out a hearty “Ahhhh…” when I massage it in, LOL! Right after, the product appears to leave behind a slightly greasy residue, but it completely disappears within a few minutes.

I wash my hands often, especially during cold and flu season, and that does a number on my paws. Burt’s Almond Milk quenches their thirst and keeps them supple and soft.

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