Organic lip balm smooth stick - lip balm discontinued by Evolution of Smooth - review by ZZ

Pomegranate Raspberry is one of three Smooth Stick and eight Smooth Sphere flavors eos currently has available. This lip balm is made of ninety-five percent organic, one hundred percent natural, paraben free, antioxidant-rich ingredients. Coconut oil, jojoba oil, shea butter, and vitamin E are key ingredients that enable this balm to provide long lasting nourishment and moisture for soft, supple lips.

In accordance with FDA regulations, ingredients are listed in decreasing order from the highest concentration by weight.

The Stick and the Sphere are packed with the exact same ingredients but with one variation. Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil is the first ingredient found in the Stick as opposed to being the third, falling behind beeswax, in the Sphere. This is true of both the Pomegranate Raspberry and the Sweet Mint flavors.

PomeRas Smooth Stick ingredients:
Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil*, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil*, Beeswax/Cera Alba (Cire D’abeille)*, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil*, Natural Flavor (Aroma), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter)*, Stevia Rebaudiana Leaf/Stem Extract*, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Seed Oil*, Tocopherol, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil*, Rubus Idaeus (Raspberry) Leaf Extract*, Linalool**. *Organic. **Component of Natural Flavor. Certified Organic by Oregon Tilth.


Does this matter & what does it mean?

The order in which ingredients are listed is important.
For example: Lets say we are looking at a product that promotes itself as shea butter. Looking at the ingredients, we see that Butyrosepermum Parkii (shea butter) is not one of the first few ingredients, but rather falls toward the end of the ingredients list. This means that this product really isn't shea butter, but more less a body butter with a small percentage of shea butter added as an ingredient. This is true of many products. We often pay for something the packaging claims rather than what the product truly contains.

In the case of varying percentage of coconut oil, found between the two containers of the same flavor, we are interested in any noticeable variations in the balms themselves.

My observation is that the Stick is softer and has an off white color, whereas the Sphere is a little denser and has a light yellow tint. They both glide on smooth but the balm from the Sphere seems to last up to ten minutes longer than that from the Stick.

The mild difference in texture and color is due to the Stick’s higher concentration of coconut oil over the Sphere’s higher concentration of olive oil and beeswax. Essentially they are the same thing, just with a minor deviation in their consistencies. You would hardly notice the difference unless you were looking for it.

If someone had randomly handed me this lip balm and asked me to determine the flavors, I’m not sure I would have been able to figure out exactly what they were supposed to be. There is fruitiness to the fragrance, but it’s not what I would expect from the combination of raspberry and pomegranate.

The Stick and Sphere have the same light, pleasant scent and subtle taste. It has the combination of something berry with a gentle mixture of tart and sweet. This is one of the milder scents from the eos lip balms.

Initially, I found this one hard to describe, especially since I thought I was smelling a hint of something floral. Looking at the ingredients, eos tends to use leaf, flower and seed oils and extracts to produce the different flavors. Keeping this in mind, it is not entirely surprising that some of the balms have a floral scent present in their fruit fragrance.

This is what makes up the taste/aroma: Stevia Rebaudiana Leaf/Stem Extract, Punica Granatum seed oil (Pomegranate), Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil (Sunflower), and Rubus Idaeus Leaf Extract (Raspberry), Linalool.

This lip balm keeps lips moist to prevent them from dying out and getting chapped.

Which to choose?

Smooth Stick _____________________Smooth Sphere
•0.15 oz of balm___________________•0.25 oz of balm
•Lasts 35-45 minutes______________•Lasts around 45-60 minutes
•A little creamier___________________•A little thicker
•Easier to carry without purse________•Bulkier, especially in pocket


The stick gives you 0.15 oz of lip balm. It fades marginally faster than the Sphere, but it is smoother and easier to carry around when you’re on the go and without a purse.

The Sphere gives you 0.25 oz of balm. It will last a little longer when worn, but it is bulkier and some find it uncomfortable to carry in a pocket.

The Stick and the Sphere are packaged in thick, durable plastic casings. The hard plastic is a lovely red color, implying raspberries.

The Smooth Stick is a traditional twist tube lip balm. It stands at 2.75 inches and has a diameter just shy of one inch, which makes it larger than most cylindrical balms. The container is not traditional in that the tube sits deep within the cap, which makes up the majority of the outer shell. In order to use the balm, the tube must be pulled out of the 2.25 inch cap rather than the usual half inch cap that removes from the top of the tube. The cap clicks onto the twistable base, over four little bumps that lock it in closed.

The Sphere has an ergonomic design and is innovative for lip balm. The container is an egg shaped oval with a flat bottom and a useful thumb grip on the side. The tallest and widest portions of the container are both around 1.75 inches, yet it is not a perfect sphere. The oval twists apart into two pieces. The inside of the top is concave and the bottom houses the half oval of lip balm. When twisted back together, the two halves click-lock back into place.

Both the Stick and Sphere containers have been designed with finger grip indents for easy handling. They each click when they lock into place and form a durable seal that will not come apart without applying the appropriate force. The Stick must have force applied to cap and base, pulling away from each other. The Sphere needs to have the top and bottom pieces twisted away from each other in opposite directions.

To indulge my own curiosity I decided to test the durability of the plastic and the seal. I threw an old, well used, Summer Fruit Sphere across a fifteen foot room. It hit the wall, bounced once off the hardwood floor and then came rolling back to me. I tried this a few times, with mild force. The Sphere never came apart, cracked or showed real signs of abuse.

It would take extreme circumstances to find either the Stick or Sphere open and causing gooey, smeared havoc inside your purse, briefcase or anything else.

Packaging

When you purchase the Sticks and Spheres individually, they come wrapped in a thin, clear plastic that is printed with the ingredients, product information and the expiration date. This plastic acts as a tamper seal and is perforated for easy removal. The spheres can also be found in individual and multi-packs with the same information printed on the package. On occasion eos will put release a special package of Spheres with one or more limited edition flavors.

These are product details from the packaging:

eos lip balm in Pomegranate Raspberry is 95% organic, 100% natural, and paraben and petrolatum free.

• Long-lasting moisture
• Shea butter & vitamin E
• Smoothes on clear
• Precisely glides on lips
• Twist-off top
• Gluten-free
• Paraben-free
• Petrolatum-free
• Phthalate-free
• 0.15 oz or 0.25 oz

USDA Organic
Certified organic by Oregon Tilth
Made in the USA

eos irritates your lips? This could be why

Vitamin E is included in lip care products for the purpose of antioxidants and anti-aging. It is worth mentioning that, for some people, it can irritate their lips. Eos uses Tocopherol as the Vitamin E they advertise on their packaging. If you look back at the ingredients, it falls closer to the end of the list, just before the flavoring oils and extracts.

Linalool is a terpene alcohol, which is extracted from plants and adds somewhat of a floral scent. This is usually the last ingredient in the list of eos lip balms ,so it really shouldn't cause you any problems. However, alcohols in lip products are a drying ingredient, which could cause irritation as well.

These are not going to cause problems for most people, but it will for a smaller number. If you are among this number and you have been wondering why an organic lip balm doesn't work for you, it might be that your lips do not like one of these two things. It's also possible that your skin reacted negatively, possibly an allergy, to one of the oils or extracts.

Pomegranate Raspberry was the third eos flavor I tried. I tend to have a preference for things that have a pomegranate taste or smell, so my expectations for this one might have been a little high. While this fell short of what I was expecting from this fruit combination, I do like the flavor.

Whether you purchase a Smooth Stick or Sphere, the lip balm itself is essentially the same. I prefer the smooth texture of the the Stick in this flavor, but it contains less balm that does not stay on quite as long as it's counterpart. The Sphere is a little more interesting and, in the long run, it is a better value for the same amount of money.