Forget bold red lipstick, ombre lip looks and fuller pouts; we are well and truly in the era of make-up minimalism. The product leading the charge? The humble lip balm. Turns out, everyone from A-listers and fashion editors to TikTokers can’t get enough of the handbag staple.
Sephora has reported a 440% increase in its own-brand lip balm, while Space NK has seen searches for ‘lip treatment’ multiple by 238%. And over on TikTok #TintedLipBalms has clocked up over 70 millions views and made the Summer Friday’s Lip Butter Balm, £23, a viral sensation.
This summer you’d have been hard pressed not to find the same tinted balm tucked into the pocket of every beauty editor’s carrot leg jeans; the Augustinus Bader x Sophia Coppola lip balm. Now, however, there’s a new lip balm making its case for beauty accessory of the year: the Victoria Beckham Beauty Posh Balm. With a £30 price tag and a lot of hype around it, we put it to the test to see if it would usurp our current prosaic pots of salve.
Victoria Beckham Beauty has become a cult make-up brand beloved by beauty insiders. Far from being just another celebrity backed beauty brand, VB herself is very hands on in the creation of her products. Beauty lore states that she is so exacting when it comes to formula that products have launched two years after the intended date.
The story of Posh Balm goes that Victoria Beckham wanted to create a lip product for those moments when you just don’t have time to think about putting on lipstick. Hard relate. The result? A velvety soft formula with a pigment that is almost imperceptible, save for the sheerest hint of colour. The Posh Balm is the sort of product that you could easily wear to the office and the gym – a true hardworking hybrid.
As with all Victoria Beckham Beauty products, the success lies in the formula. Laced with murmuru seed butter, plant-derived lanolin and cucumber seed oil, there’s some hefty hydration going on, and - crucially - it lasts. No need for reapplication every five minutes here.
Available in four shades – Glace, an everyday clear balm; Fleur, a sheer rose pink; Colette, a tinted poppy red and Cassis, a subtle blackberry – there’s also some clever pH technology at play, which works to enhance the natural colour of your lips.
It’s these subtle colour nods that take VB’s version of a lip balm from blah to mwah. Our verdict? Find out below.
Our honesyt review of the Victoria Beckham Beauty Posh Balm
Victoria Beckham Beauty Posh Balm
Verity Clark, acting health and beauty director says: 'Housed in the signature sleek white packaging, everything about these lip balms is 100% more chic than your average pot of Vaseline. The mechanical clicking as you twist your chosen shade, the magnetic closing of the case, the fact that each balm has labelling in the colour that corresponds to its shade. And then there are the formulas themselves; rich, buttery but not sticky or claggy, the subtlest hint of colour that actually stays put. There are lip balms and then there is Posh Balm. You get the same thrill of pulling out a luxe lipstick without the faff of having to actually apply the stuff. I've found my new handbag essential.'
Pros
- nourishing with skincare ingredients
- subtle hint of colour
- glamorous casing
Cons
- can't twist the product back down
Verity Clark is the acting health & beauty director at Grazia. Previously contributing beauty editor at the Sunday Times Style Verity has almost a decade of experience writing about the beauty industry. She has worked with some of the industry’s most respected titles including Red, Good Housekeeping and Elle, and her aim is to demystify, and democratise, the conversation around beauty. Verity works behind the beauty scenes too and has helped big brands and retailers, including Liberty and Feelunique (now Sephora) with their vision to make beauty accessible to all – a mainstay of her writing.