Overview

Rating: 5/5 stars ★★★★★
Price Tag: $2.19 USD
Flavors Available: 9 varieties
Weight: 0.25 oz / 7 g
Where to Buy: In Lucky’s Markets; Online at soothingtouch.com

I had not heard of the brand Soothing Touch until I visited the new Lucky’s Market store in Iowa City. It was on sale at the time so I decided to try one flavor of lip balm. I don’t recall how much I spent on the balm, but they are quite the steal at two bucks online at the Soothing Touch website.

Soothing Touch Lip balms are fair trade certified, cruelty-free and vegan.

Packaging

The lip balm is packaged in a white, jumbo sized lip tube. I’m not a huge fan of these larger tubes as I find it more difficult to apply the product to my lips. But you do get more product in one go over a traditional lip balm tube. And the price makes this one of the most budget-friendly vegan lip balms out there.

The product is pushed up by twisting the top portion, rather than the base.

The label includes the brand and product type, full ingredients, item barcode, and company info, along with logos stating that the product is vegan, cruelty-free, fair trade certified and recyclable. I’m guessing at the last one since I don’t see a plastic number type on the tube itself. There’s a lot of info included on the label, but it’s relatively easy to read. The label itself has a nice satiny feel.

The label acts as the safety seal and is easy to remove. Part of it is retained at the top and lists the flavor name of the balm.

Now Avocado oil, Goddess Garden Sport Sunscreen and Soothing Touch Lip Balm that I picked up at Lucky’s Market.

Formulation

The balm has a light, waxy formulation. It’s moisturizing—it is a balm—and lasts a fair amount of time. I’m hard on my lip products, so I get shorter wear time than most. The label states the product is 85% organic and also includes fairly traded palm wax. Since the balm is vegan, it is beeswax and lanolin free.

There are no dyes in the formulation, leaving the balm an off-white color.

The flavor is obtained by natural flavors of vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, as well as cardamom essential oil. Sometimes I think I get a tingling sensation when I apply the balm, but that’s probably due to the slight allergic reaction I have to cinnamon oils and flavors (regular powdered cinnamon doesn’t seem to affect me).

I notice a bit of an odd spice aftertaste, most likely due to the cardamom.

Flavor

I don’t remember how many flavors Lucky’s carried—probably 3 or 4—but I decided to purchase just one to try.

Vanilla Chai

I actually don’t like the taste of chai at all, but I do like this flavor. It’s subtle and not at all overpowering. Like chai, the cardamom is the star flavor. There’s no actual tea in the balm. The flavor is created by a combination of vanilla, cinnamon and ginger natural flavors, as well as cardamom essential oil.

Final Thoughts

Pros: Moisturizing, fair trade certified, mostly organic, budget-friendly
Cons: Jumbo tube, odd spice aftertaste

I’m always looking for new vegan lip products at my local stores. There really aren’t a lot of options locally where I live in Iowa, so I’m always happy to see a new vegan product pop up. I tend to be picky about the lip balms I use, but I like this balm quite a bit and use it often.