I really wish I could remember which of my lovely fellow bloggers did a great review of Merlot Skincare a while back. I searched and searched but couldn't find the review, so let me just say that her review made me think twice about this line. Before reading that review, I felt kind of "meh" when I saw these products at Walgreens. But after reading that review, and doing more research, I came to find that Merlot skincare has quite a cult following in the blogosphere.
So when I saw a goldfish bowl of Merlot Lip Moisturizers with a "$0.50" sign at my Wags recently (regularly $2.99), it took me all of about two seconds to put one in my basket.
Merlot Lip Moisturizer with SPF15
(retail: $2.99 at Walgreens, currently on sale for $0.50 at my local Wags)
The first thing I noticed was the color of the balm. It's not a bright, fake-looking purple, but more of a "natural" purple shade. Don't be scared of this color though, because this balm does go on clear and I've found that it doesn't deposit any color whatsoever on my lips. On the Waglreens site, there are some complaints that once you twist this balm up, it doesn't twist back down. Fortunately, I found this not to be the case with my tube--it twists down just as easily as it twists up.
I was really hoping this would smell and taste like red grapes. But in reality, it doesn't have much taste or fragrance at all. I'd even go so far to say this is very close to fragrance-free and flavorless, which could be a great bonus for some of you. For me? Well I love grapes so I'm a little sad that there's no grape scent or flavor.
As for the texture and feel, I like how this balm feels on my lips. It glides on easily (not super creamy, but it does not tug against my lips at all) and I love the smooth feel of it against my lips. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being very sheer and light, 10 being very heavy and thick) I'd give this balm a 7, which is exactly how I like my lip balm. It's not extremely heavy or greasy, but it does coat my lips quite well and makes them feel very protected and hydrated.
All in all, I think this is a decent lip balm and worth $0.50 if your Wags has it on sale. My biggest complaint would be that for a balm that touts itself as containing grape seed oil (see front of tube, right above the word "Merlot"), I find it a little frustrating that grape seed oil is the last oil in the ingredients, right before the preservative (tocopheryl acetate/Vitamin E) and the dyes. To me that indicates that it's heavy on other oils, with maybe just a "splash" of actual grape seed oil. Of course I could be wrong, but since it's way down on the list it doesn't appear that there's a lot of grape seed oil in this product.
Do you own any Merlot products? Have you had good luck with them? I'd love to hear from you!
Aw, it has oxybenzone as a sunblock ingredient... I recently read somewhere that it's not good for the skin, something about free radicals. The EOS lip balm in Lemon Drop has it too, what a shame -_-
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