Great Lips by MUA

Do you love British sweets from the ‘80s and ‘90s? Tinted lip balms? Bargain make-up? Nude lip shades? If you answered yes to any of the above then hooray! I have something to show you that might just be right up your street!

This is Great Lips tinted lip balm by the brand MUA, which is available online and in selected Superdrugs as part of the MUA/Love Hearts (British sweets that my fellow 30-something friends will no doubt have fond memories of from their childhoods…) make-up range which contains a selection of sweet-inspired nail varnish and lip balm shades. Great Lips is the name of this shade incidentally, not the range. I think the range is just called Love Hearts lip balm. These retail at £2 each.

The balms have the consistency of Vaseline, which seems to be the main ingredient (paraffinum liquidum) so they’re very soft to the touch, and also feel very moisturising once on the lips. It’s just a bit too soft for my liking and I don’t like applying it with my fingers as I end up smushing a big hole in the product and picking up too much whenever I dip my finger in. I use a lip brush to apply the product instead. That’s just my personal preference though. It does mean that despite the handy handbag sized packaging this isn’t an on-the-go product for me. It’s a shame as the colour doesn’t last that long and I would like to take it with me to top up while I’m out as they do feel lovely on the lips. As it is I just apply it before I go out and leave the colour to fade gracefully. The balm is quite pigmented, which I wasn’t actually expecting. Here’s a shot of my lips with a generous swipe of product.

For me it’s the perfect accompaniment to a smoky eye. Here’s the look I wore it with at the weekend– a golden yellow and black softly smoky look.

I thought I’d include a few more close-ups of my eye make-up as I hardly ever wear black eyeshadow (I think that last time I wore black eyeshadow out was actually to a Christmas party two years ago) and this look turned out better than I was expecting.

I blended for a long time because I wanted the black to be really diffused. I used the shades Honey (1) and Zero (2) from my Urban Decay Deluxe palette pictured below (which I am slowly but surely managing to use up!)