Wander Beauty Beach Balm

I bought this Wander Beauty Secret Escape Kit solely for its Beach Balm. Because the only thing that remains in my leaving-the-house routine now is lip colors, and may be a dab of cheek colors if I'm lucky, which is why I eyed this balm as it's supposedly for lips and cheeks.

I appreciate that there's only one color available, Sangria. I don't know about you, but huge color selections really overwhelm me. The fact that this balm is marketed as a sheer balm tint only makes it that much more fitting for my nearly nonexistent routine right now.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

The first thing I noticed is that this Beach Balm is huge! And it's not just a big tube with little content as in, ahem, the case of Sonia Kashuk Shine Luxe Sheer Lip Colour either, containing 4.5g of product versus SK's 2.7g. I suppose it makes sense that the bigger tube with more product is for use on both the lips and cheeks. The tube is nice and weighty too, though probably scratch-prone being a shiny, metallic wine color. The cap securely clicks shut but the balm stick itself only twists upwards and doesn't go back down, a rather weird shortcoming if you ask me.

I didn't expect much but this Beach Balm pleasantly surprised me. This is the first lips-and-cheeks product that I prefer exclusively on the lips. All the others I have (Stila Convertible Color, Lipstick Queen Oxymoron Matte Gloss, Canmake Lip & Cheek Gel, to name a few) are just too thin, oddly silicone-y, and uncomfortable for my dry lips. Whereas this balm actually feels like a balm, and an oil-based one at that. It's decently thick but not sticky or gooey, and it's moisturizing and glossy.

I haven't tried this Beach Balm on my cheeks and I probably won't, because there are obvious shimmers in it. The shimmers are visible in the swatch on the back of my hand, but on my lips I neither feel nor see them, which makes me wish them absent to begin with. But other than the shimmers I don't have any other complaints, and am happy to have all of 4.5g just for my lips.

- Sangria: a transparent raspberry red in the tube but swatches a cooler, blue-based red on the back of my hands. On my lips, it applies true to how it appears in the tube. Likey!