It's 23:59 here in Hungary and I'm about to doze off any minute, but since I already have this post written, I'll be a good girl and type it. It simply won't do to just skip a day like that! (Hey, it's past midnight now and I have a job interview tomorrow! Good for me...)

Anyway, I'm sure many people will agree with me when I say that Calendula flower is a wonderful thing to have in any beauty product because of its healing properties. (Okay, at least I know that Divine Blackness will agree. ;-) It is especially great to discover a lip balm that has this magic plant in it, because God knows we all need a little bit of healing for a our lips in the wintertime. Last December I was still quite unaware of how much my lips could benefit from this flowery goodness and didn't much care for the stuff, but I quickly mended my ways after picking up Alverde's Calendula Lip Balm in the store and using it for about a week. Let's see the Pros and Cons!

Pros:

• When it comes to cracked and neglected lips, this balm is a real miracle worker. It happens around every fall that I forget to switch to something heavier and waxier and the results are usually disastrous: my lips are in pain, shedding skin and just begging for a little more attention. That's where Alverde's Calendula Lip Balm comes in: trust this little fella to deal with lip emergencies in no time!
  
  
• Two words: tube container!!! Oh my goodness how I missed thee! After years of struggling to open LUSH lip balm pots in school corridors, on jam-packed subways and crowded streets I felt I was I heaven the first time I whipped this out from my pocket on the bus heading home.
  
  
• Price: around 3 $!
  
  
• Ingredients list: contains castor oil, jojoba oil, beeswax, wheat germ oil, calendula flower extract. (See full list at the end of this post!)
  
  
• Consistency: not too light but not too hard either, kinda creamy in my opinion; perfectly smooth and easy to apply; a bit on the waxy side, but that's just what I prefer during the winter months anyway. (Color is yellow, just as something that contains calendula extract should be.)
  
  
• Size: 4.8 grams
  
  
• Gives excellent protection from the cold winds and the dry air. It seals in moisture perfectly and thus makes my lips soft and smooth. No chapped lips, no cracks and no pain. Nada.
  
  
• Not tested on animals! (That's very important for me. I once spent an entire semester writing an academic research paper on animal experiments and doing a presentation about it. I saw tons of pictures and read lots of articles on the subject and was abhorred by the sheer cruelty of human beings capable of performing these experiments. Haven't used anything tested on animals since then.)

Cons:

• The scent is somewhat herbal and almost on the greasy side, but it's tolerable in my opinion.
  
  
• No flavor, or at least I couldn't detect one (only the taste of the oils and waxes and the calendula extract, but it's not bad either). I'd prefer a little vanilla though...
  
  
• I'm on my second tube now and I haven't had any problems with this one yet, but the previous balm tended to be gritty sometimes. I found a good solution to that though: I always kept the stuff near me (i.e.: in my pocket) so it warmed up and the grainy bits simply melted and dissolved by the next use.

All in all, this is the best lip balm out there when it comes to performance, price and practicality. If you get a chance to buy one, don't hesitate! It's 3 bucks, so you're not risking much, and it may do a lot of good for your lips.

Ingredients list:
Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Hydrogenated Coco Glycerides, Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax, Cera Alba (Beeswax), Copernica Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax, Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract*, Magnesium Stearate, Aroma (Flavour)**, Linalool**, Benzyl Benzoate**, Tocopherol

* Ingredients from certified organic agriculture
** From natural essential oils


Take a look at some picture of this lip balm here: www.ciao.de

alverde