Hello everyone and welcome back! Finally I get around to do this and that is Battle of the Balm Stains! So you all beauty lovers know, a lot of make up companies in drugstores have been coming out with these balm stain lip crayons which are lip color mixed with a lip balm and a lot of You Tubers and Beauty Bloggers have been going crazy about these and so have I! It seemed it started with Cover Girl releasing their Twist and Shine Jumbos which I heard through Miss Glamorazzi and Eleventh Gorgeous, then I had to pick some up myself, then later on Revlon, Jordana, even Rimmel and Wet N Wild started following the trend, but it seems that the bigger contenders are of course Revlon with their Matte Balms and Lacquer Balms, the new Wet N Wild Twist and Shines that just came out a month ago, Jordana’s version that has been mentioned all over, even Make Up Freak has been mentioning them and has all of them, and finally Cover Girl with their little twistys that came out early last year! I do have two of each except for Jordana since I didn’t want to go uber crazy like I did with Revlon at Target, which I ended up with four, two from Matte and two from Lacquers, which brought me to this post! So, what does Nerdy Shique Universe say about these lucky lines? Let’s see!

Formulation

Like any make up company, these products are made with different indgredients in order to make their product very moisturizing and give that stain of color while they’re at it! Let’s see what each has what!

Cover Girl’s: shea and mango butters

Revlon’s:  shea, mango, and coconut in both from seeing commercials

Jordana;s:  Hydrogenated Polyisobuttne, bis-digllyceryl polyacyladipat-2…you can read the rest of the formula here since it is too complicated:  http://www.jordanacosmetics.com/p-160-twist-shine-moisturizing-balm-stain.aspx  But you get the idea since this has more weird ingredients by the looks of it!

Wet N Wild’s:  Sorry, I meant Mega Slix, but the formulation of these include acai palm butter

Jordana’s formula description feels really complicated when I looked at the ingredients on Ulta’s page about them, while the others have more natural ingredients and it seems as though Wet N Wild is getting into the natural ingredients part since they are adding more oils to their products with their new lines. I do feel as though Cover Girl’s product is a bit drying to the lips whenever I wore Berry and Plum Twist  which it looks like Plum got discontinued according to Ulta’s site and it was on the CVS Big Winter Discount Block last year, still a bit drying. I find the Revlon stains smell more like mint than sweet and they do feel moisturizing but I disagree with the idea  with some that they are more moisturizing than the Lip Butters, I find ttthe Lip Butters more moisturizing than these. I am using Flirtacious right now and I find the moisture and tingle of it when I put it on but at the same time I find Cupcake more moisturizing from the Lip Butters. The Jordana one does have moisture when I first tried it on, I kind of feel more moisture from Wet N Wild’s in their price range.

W

Inner for Best Formula: I would have to say Wet N Wild since it seems that they are starting to breach their bondaries in making products with more natural ingredients and I do love that about make up products, plus it leaves a nice tingle and you can build these up to give more moisture along the way. Make sure you use tissues after application so you won’t have a Joker smile. I love the ones I own in Pinky Promise and Rico Mauve and will be using these again!

Packaging: Even these have similar packaging and similar sizes, I will be basing these when you pick these up! Why? Because there are times when packaging gets annoying when we try opening these items and well I do find the Wet N Wild ones the most annoying! There was plastic wrapped around it and it was pretty hard to get it open, I had to leave the plastic on on one of them to help me out in which one was what. I did like how there was an easy pull tab on the Jordana one but there is one slight problem with their packaging and that is the cap on the stick. It seems shorter than one of my other stain balms but it seems as though that Jordana didn’t make the cap to fit tightly on their lip stains or is it just Tropical Frenzy, which is the only one I own. Unlike the Rropical Frenzy one, the rest of the caps fit snug and don’t damage the product while TF does a little, which the tip of the lip stain gets diminished a little without use since the cap is always falling off. The Revlon ones and Cover Girl ones have easier packaging which I saw the price tag just sticking to them at Target and I think they do the same at other stores, still it is easy to get off and easy to open once you buy them. Another great thing about the packaging is that these stains all have a tip ready to use and you don’t need to sharpen, you just twist the end and you are ready to go! Plus, these are easy to travel with, I may use these during coventions!

Winner with Packaging:  I would have to say Revlon since they weren’t wrapped in annoying plastic and the price tag just held them in place, and Cover Girl also gets a win since it was easy to open as well!

Staying Power: I know this would be great with formula but this seems to be a great thing to mention separately. The staying power is pretty amazing since I used the Wet N Wild ones so far, the Cover Girls, and one of the Revlons. I didn’t wear Tropical Frenzy yet but I did hear in videos that the staying power with the Jordana one is pretty good, which I will have to see for myself. The Wet N Wild ones do have really good staying power and do stay on pretty well, you can drink and eat and they will stay put! Even Emily Noel is pretty amazed when she got her press sample of these! One thing is that they do leave a stain that is different from the tube according to her, which I can’t see since I can’t see a mirror but I do feel how it stays on my lips and does have that nice minty tingle! Revlon also has a nice staying power which I don’t have to apply so often as much as the WNW ones and I do like the feel! I do feel as though that Flirtacious, the one I am using from the Lacquer Balm line, stays like crazy like a Lip Butter! I worn it to my workout today and never had to reapply afterwards. I can see why a lot of people went crazy for the Revlons! And finally the Cover Girl ones, I remembered these had to be reapplied so often and had to be layered a little bit for the moisture and some staying power.

Winner for Staying: I would have to say Revlon Flirtacious since I feel as though I don’t have to reapply as much as the Wet N Wild and Cover Girl ones!

Pricing: I know you guys want to know what price ranges you will expect from all of these and which would be more affordable! Both Jordana and Wet N Wild are around the $3 range like their other products. What is great though, on the new Balm Stains that WNW had released, they do have a $1 Off coupon so it would bring it down to $1. 99 for each! If you want to go for more higher end, Cover Girl and Revlon are around the $8 at most drugstores but they do go for $6 at Target and their website and of course, WalMart tends to sell Revlon for around $6 at their stores!

Winner: Wet N Wild takes this due to so many people like to get items affordable when it comes to cosmetics and of course these come with that coupon I mentioned above!

Final Verdict: I would have to say I like Revlon’s lip stain line a bit better than the others since I tend to like the staying power on them and they do feel moisturizing but not more moisturizing than the Lip Butters. My runner up though is Wet N Wild due to it being affordable and you do feel a nice tingle but you need to apply a little more often than the Revlon ones.

Which Would I Use for a Convention? Both WNW and Revlon would be the best to use since these do have pretty good staying power, but as said above you may need to reapply WNW’s product a bit more. Plus, these won’t take too much room in a purse or a fanny pack if you want to do that.

Well, that is it! What is next for Nerdy Shique Universe? Well, another convention spotlight! I will be aiming it on MetroCon since me and Gondras will be going back to the West Coast of Florida for another year of Metro and this time our press stuff will be better and this year there will be better panels by what I saw on the schedule block. Stay tuned for the next post!