Using the Axiology Lip to Lid Balmies

Recently Axiology sent a few items to me to try out and review. As always my opinions are completely my own. I was very excited about these products though because one thing I have been trying to do in my life is to reduce waste.

Axiology has more or less the same mission, although on a much grander scale than mine. Enter the Lip to Lid Balmies. A zero waste Multi use cosmetic crayon. I have the two pack or Nude Plum and Rose which is described as…

Lip-to-Lid Balmies are plastic-free, multi-use crayons for eyes, lips and cheeks. Packed with oils, butters, and antioxidants such as hemp, and plum oil to nourish and hydrate skin. 100% vegan, cruelty-free and palm oil-free. Made with 9 natural ingredients.

Ingredients:Ricinus communis (castor) seed oil*, Helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil*, Garcinia indica (kokum) seed butter, Helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed wax, Cannabis sativa (hemp) seed oil*, Sambucus nigra fruit extract, Prunus domestica (plum) seed oil, Tocopherol**, Azadirachta indica seed oil*

I know I normally only talk about ingredients in skincare but these are well worth talking about here. These products are vegan so they use sunflower seed wax instead of beeswax. If you look down the list it is pretty easy to see it is not a bad list of ingredients. I’ll admit I did have to look up kokum seed butter and nigra fruit extract but the others are items I would not mind seeing in my skincare. (and those I wouldn’t mind either I just had to look them up.) In case you were wondering kokum seed butter is an emollient and nigra fruit extract is also known as black elderberry and has antioxidant properties.

And both are more in keeping with skincare than makeup.

Usually.

While I have the two balmies, they do come in trios and even a Super Fan Pack with fourteen of these little crayons. Personally I was quite stunned by the array of colors available. I have been using these for various functions for the past few weeks (almost a month now actually). They are multi use items designed for use on the eye lids, cheeks and lips.

The first thing you notice when they arrive is that the outer packaging is completely recyclable. It is all paper and it quickly breaks down and can be sent off to the recycling no muss np fuss. We actually needed some dry material for our compost (we are a bit heavy on the coffee grounds) and so I tore the packaging into small bits and added it to it. The packaging is no more.

Inside, the container for the balmies is also made of recycled paper and ou yeah, the actually wrapping for the cosmetic crayon? Yup, that’s paper too. As you use the balmie it wears down and you just peel off the paper and keep using it until there is nothing left.

It is quite an interesting design. I imagine those last little bits of product might get a bit messy, but it will take a while to get there and they would only be a mess when it got down to the last little nub as the paper does go all the way to the base of the crayon and so should hold on until the very end if you are careful with your unwrapping.

I will say that while using these I did sort of want a Cruella Deville style cigarette holder to put them in. I think if Axiology ever decides to expand a bamboo holder in that style (without the hole for smoking) would be quite the classy addition. But that might just be me.

First, let’s talk eyes.

I really liked the way that I could draw a line with the product on the outer corner of my eye and then use a finger tip to blend it towards the center. Whether it is the product or these colors I don’t know but with that approach I managed a real natural sort of look. Just a little hint of color to give a little life to the face. I did try to build up the products and I was able to deepen the tone, but in truth when used as shadows these are really on the more natural side than they are the ultra glam side. The color can be deepened but the nude plum and the rose really leaned towards the natural low makeup kind of looks. I will say that while it is easy to blend, once it is in place it stays all day.

The cheeks were interesting.

I think because I so recently used the Axiology Color Cream which I have to be honest is now my standard for cream blushes, this fell a little short. The formula is fine, but the fine point didn’t work as well for me on the cheeks. These products want to draw a line. I did try and draw a circle and then blend, but the trick is you have to move really fast. Once these balmies are in place they want to stay in place. Which is great for makeup longevity but was not the best with the pointed crayon. I did have better success flipping the crayon over and using the flat bottom of the crayon but to use it I had to peel back the paper and so it left product exposed on both sides and that sort of meant it got all over my hand from the back when I went to use the pointy end.

While it can be used as a cheek product, and will look good on the cheeks, I think I am going to stick with the Color Creams for the cheeks. The shape is just better suited for the cheek area.

And finally the lips.

These Balmies were amazing on the lips. they are creamy and pigmented. The shades I have are more in the my lips but better sort of range. Again, that is just for these shades, there might be more dramatic shades in the box. But quite honestly I loved these. On the lips they feel like lip balm rather than lipstick. They don’t have the often waxy texture of a bullet style lipstick, they really just feel like a nice light lip balm. It also lends itself to a more natural look. It is a matte finish, however I found that pretty much any clear gloss will go over them really well and look good. I used the Revolution pout Balm and they looked great.

The one thing they don’t do is cover up any lip damage. if you have a dry spot on your lips then it does kind of show given the lightness of the formula. It will not irritate your lips though even if they are chapped which is nice. It is just not going to give you that super smooth look to your lips. It is not pigmented for that and it isn’t that dense a formula. However the point does allow you to trace your lips well so you don’t need a lip liner. And actually with this set if you are looking to do your liner one shade darker than your lip color and blend a little bit, the plum works well as a liner and the rose for infill.

Over all i was very impressed with Axiology’s Lip to Lid Balmies. They work well for different uses and are easy to use. There is a good amount of product so it will last a long time. The placement of the paper is designed to let you use the entire product with no fuss (unless you peel it back and try to use the back end). For me the cheeks were not my favorite use and that had more to do with the shape pf the product and the cat that I knew Axiology’s Color Cream was just a fantastic cheek product. If you are looking for products (and brands) that provide good products while reducing plastic, metal and other unrecyclable packaging I think that Axiology should be on your list to check out. Personally I will use these two crayons down to nubs and plan to keep them hand this summer when my default makeup look is low to no makeup for most of my week. I think Axiology’s Lip to Lid Balmies are a product I will keep around for a long time to come.

Testing out the Axiology Multi-Stick Color Cream

Axiology very kindly sent over several products for me to try out and review. As always the reviews are my opinion alone. As all of the products sent had over lapping uses but slightly different formulas, I am splitting out the products so that I can get a feel for the different formulas.

If you have never heard of Axiology, I would really suggest checking them out. They are a company that puts all of their products in packaging with no plastic or metal parts. Everything from the shipping box and filler paper to the outer product packaging to the product packaging itself is made of paper. The shipping box and outer packaging I ended up tearing up and putting in my compost bin as dry matter. And when I finish with these products, their packaging will also journey to the composter.

Which I absolutely love. For the Color Creams, the product is in a lip balm style package but instead of the plastic twist off bits to lift the product, it is all paper and you push gently on the bottom to cause the product to rise. It’s also why I don’t have a picture of all of the product pushed out to show how much is inside. I wasn’t confident it would push back down. But as there are no internal mechanisms, just a paper base, I’m guessing the entire tube is filled with the product. Which is nice to know.

The first product I chose to try out (after the first day where i went a little crazy and tried to try all of them at once which didn’t work due to over lapping uses) was the Color Cream. According to the Axiology website…

Plastic-free packaging meets nourishing color in this extra creamy multi-stick. Plant butters and oils such as soy butter and coconut oil deeply penetrate skin for long-lasting hydration with a rich and creamy finish. Naturally-derived, vegan & cruelty-free. Made with 10 simple ingredients. Handcrafted in Bend, Oregon.

Ingredients: Cocos nucifera (coconut) oil*, Persea gratissima (avocado) oil, Ricinus communis (castor) seed oil*, Hydrogenated soybean oil, Helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed wax, Vitis vinifera (grape) seed oil*, Sambucus nigra fruit extract, Helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, Tocopherol**, Azadirachta indica seed oil*

Since they mention the ten ingredients I thought it best to list their ingredients. It is a list I like as nothing on it gives me any issues. On the lips the formula is hydrating and highly pigmented. (I have the Shade True). It is a multi use stick so I used it as both a cream blush and a lipstick.

For the lips, it is a pigmented color that applies well. It actually applies like a lip balm actually and that is how it feels on the lips. It is creamy and lip balm-esque. It will leave lip prints but they are faint. You kind of have to rub to get a lot of color leaving. I’m not sure why you would rub your lips on a glass mug, but you do you. It left a little more color on a straw than on the lip of a glass I think because of the pressing action of using a straw. The two pictures below are of the Color Cream first applied and then taken again after lunch. the color fades but is still pretty decent.

While the lips are nice and really it felt like wearing a lip balm, for me this is best as a cream blush. For a light touch I dotted it on my cheeks and then blended it in. It blends well but you do need to go one cheek at a time. so dot one cheek blend and then switch to the other cheek and blend. then check and see if you need more. It is pigmented but it blends softly. Still start with a small amount of product and build up to the shade you want. It can be built up with multiple applications, but start with just a little bit and see how it blends.

I used this as my blush for the past two weeks so you can easily flip through the pictures to see varying degrees of pigmentation. I went kind of soft with the pics for this post since that is my preferred blush application. I like a tint of pink to keep me from being washed out but my skin tone responds better to the deeper tones so it is always interesting to play pigment color and pigment saturation off of each other. this actually has a really good balance. It has the deeper tone but it isn’t too heavy. It is very buildable though and while it doesn’t dry down super fast if you do one cheek at a time it works best for blending.

When used as a cream blush the Color Cream form Axiology also didn’t pull up any of my foundation. I rotated through several foundations an had no issues. As that can be a common issue with cream blushes (and other cream face products actually) I was pleased to see this didn’t have that issue.

Over all I was really impressed with this Color Cream from Axiology. Sometimes good ideas in sustainability don’t always translate to the best most usable products. I always hope for the best but there is often some disappointment. This had no disappointment. Fab easy to use packaging with an ethos I can get behind with a fantastically easy to use product inside. For me it was a great product.

I will probably end up using it more as a cream blush than I will a lip product, mostly because it is one of the best cream blushes I have tried and I really like it as a cream blush. And while I don’t have a lot of cream blushes that I like, I do have a lot of lip products I like. So scarcity determines use for me. I like knowing that if I don’t have a lip product handy then i can use it as a lipstick, but it will be for me a go to blush and an incidental lip product.

I also tended to use a lip brush to apply it as a lip product. I used the brush on the side of the product and the tp of the product dotted onto my cheeks for blush. Over all this Color Cream was a winner for me and I can’t wait to see how the other products sent to me in the package from Axiology work out. If they work even half as well as the Color Cream i will be a very happy camper.

Tool Talk: Afterspa Reusable Rounds

Each week I give posting space to a variety of products and talk about their benefits and uses, but I don’t often talk about the tools I use with them. I am trying to correct that with these tool talk posts. Some weeks it will be makeup brushes and other weeks flat irons. This week I decided to go with the reusable cotton rounds from Afterspa.

The Afterspa reusable rounds came in my January Glossy Box and I for one was very happy to see them. It was actually a really good box this month. You can check out my unboxing here if you’d like to see the whole thing.

A while back I took a look at the waste in my house and I have been trying to reduce the amount of it. In the back yard, we purchased a composter and a lot of our kitchen waste makes it back there, from coffee grounds to egg shells. It keeps it out of our trash bin and gives us some really good compost each year. Actually many of the subscription boxes that I get make their way there, the shipping boxes getting torn up and used as dry material in the composter. I just have to peel off any tape. The ones with the wax coating take a little longer to deteriorate so often times I’ll use them to line the bottom of a raised flower bed to keep the weeds down. It smothers the weeds and eventually disintegrates into the dirt.

In the bathroom I use a Makeup Eraser and some kind of makeup removing produce (balm, oil, micellar water) to remove my makeup instead of the makeup wipes. Occasionally, I will use a makeup wipe, but I don’t buy them regularly any more. It took a while to break the habit, but I did.

At the moment I have a sample pack that I received in a subscription box that I have been slowly working through. I also signed up for a trial Refreshments box from IPSY and will be getting a pack in that. I wanted to try the subscription and if I like the scents I will trade out the wipes for another product if possible as I suspect a full sized pack of wipes will either be something I use up right away simply because they are there and I go makeup wipe crazy while I have them or I will parcel them out miserly for an extended period. I don’t know which it will be as I haven’t used them routinely in a while.

But I no longer use them routinely so it won’t be a reorder for the subscription if i end up keeping it. (My first shipment is in February so I’ll keep you posted on that.

Empty containers usually make their way into my greenhouse where they are repurposed. Moisturizer jars are used to hold sprouting seeds, serum droppers are used to dose out liquid fertilizer mostly to orchids, spray bottles are turned into misters for plants that like water through their leaves instead of at their roots.

This means that at the moment cotton rounds are my biggest waste product in my bathroom. The two things I use them for the most are toner and eye makeup remover. I know, I can use the Makeup Eraser for eye makeup removal, however at the moment I have a single Makeup Eraser that I use all week and then throw into the wash at the end of the week. (I used different spots and rotate around so I’m always using a clean section of cloth.)

I really need to look into getting a pack of smaller Makeup Erasers. They now have small square ones that let you use a different Makeup Eraser each day so that you can put them in the wash after one use. I had planned to get a pack of the Sponge Bob Square pants ones, but they sold out and then I got distracted. I know they have a Goodnight Moon Set that I really like the look of, but it is one of the full sized ones instead of the smaller cloths so I need to talk myself out of it. Or find out if they have it in smaller sizes.

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I don’t mind using the one Makeup Eraser all week, I just shift to different spots on the cloth to take down my face makeup each day of use. I am just a little more hesitant to do so around my eyes. Not only is there more product around my eyes, some of which is harder to remove – like mascara-, but I just don’t like the thought of potentially putting germs near my eyes. So I tend to remove my eye makeup with disposable cotton rounds so that I know they are fresh each day.

In theory, the reusable rounds from Afterspa are the perfect solution.

The pack sent to me in Glossy Box contained two rounds, which is quite perfect as far as testing goes. I can use them and see how I feel about them before committing to a box of them, because realistically I would need a minimum of three per day: two for my daily toner and one for eye makeup removal. Or so I thought.

it was a brown eyeshadow day, but some of that is foundation

I took out the After Spa reusable rounds to try and my first recommendation is to wash them before you use them. While I am certain they are hygienic right out of the pack, if you use them without washing you will end up with a lot of white fuzz on your face.

The reusable rounds are soft and floppy. The feel good against the skin. However with toner, they felt a little too big. I generally hold my cotton round against my face with the use of two fingers and occasional assistance by my thumb. This required the whole hand. There were maneuverability issues and the reusable round kept rolling up on me so that one application accidentally used both sides of the round. I wasn’t certain if I could use one side and then have the other side available of a second use, but it was something I planned to test. However even if the toner hadn’t leaked through and the side away from my face remained sanitary under traditional use circumstances, the round kept rolling up so there was no way that the other side could be used as it was already partially used during the first pass.

The rolling was a bit annoying actually and that was only partially due to size. The round is really too big to be used for a product like a toner. The other issue was the material. It is very soft and almost too soft for use in applying toner. If the material was a little thicker or the edge was a little stiffer, this would be an entirely different review. I did not care for them when using it to apply products like toner.

But there is also eye makeup removal.

To remove my eye makeup: mascara, liner and shadow, I had to use both cotton rounds, both sides. The problem is, again, that the thin cloth is too soft. It feels good against the skin, but it doesn’t have the thickness that is needed for makeup removal. The Makeup eraser is still soft material but it is sturdier as well and does a much better job. It also has a stiffer edging which really helps it. I don’t think these rounds need a large border, but because of the super soft material it really needs a stiffer edging to help it lay flat.

I will say that when I tossed them in the wash after use, they came out spotlessly clean. They were white and even the eyeliner and mascara washed out. I am not certain how long they will last under weekly use and washing conditions. I will continue using them to see if I might find some tricks to getting them to perform the way I want them to as well as seeing how long they hold up, but I don’t think these particular reusable rounds are for me.

I still have high hopes that I will find some reusable rounds that are. Because I would love to continue to eliminate as much waste as possible, but for now, I will use my makeup eraser and in the near future order a set of smaller makeup erasers for eye makeup removal if nothing else. I will still use the cotton rounds for applications of things like toners though and I will keep searching for reusable rounds to eventually take their place.

I know this was a post about the Afterspa Reusable rounds, and you got to hear a lot more about the Makeup eraser, but to be honest, using the After Spa Rounds made me appreciate the Makeup Eraser more. And when introducing a new tool to your repertoire it is good to fit it into the context of already used products and to see how it stacks up. At least that is my thought.