Follow The Honey — Treat Your Pout With The New Lancôme Absolue Precious Cells Nourishing Lip Balm
You might just hum Mariah Carey’s “Honey” when you apply the new Lancôme Absolue Precious Cells Nourishing Lip Balm ($50 at Lancome-USA.com, Lancôme counters, and Saks.com), as the lyrics, “Oh baby, I’ve got a dependency/Always strung out for another taste of your honey” surfacing from the depths of your memory. After all, honey plays a crucial role in the lip balm’s formula. And it’s not just any honey — it’s acacia honey, which is considered the Aston Martin of bee-made nectar, the gold standard of honeys. Made from the black locust tree, acacia honey has a higher fructose content than other honey varieties, which accounts for its sweeter taste and for its greater efficacy as a humectant (a substance that helps absorb and maintain moisture) in skin care products.
The latest addition to Lancôme’s luxurious Absolue collection aims to nourish, replenish, and smooth lips, making them appear fuller and more voluptuous while also diminishing the appearance of any fine lines — and meets these goals gloriously. This highly concentrated lip balm features a dense and salve-like consistency — in fact, it’s slightly more difficult to extract out than your traditional squeeze tube lip moisturizer. In a way, it’s helpful that the opening on the tube’s slanted tip is as small as it is since you don’t want to squeeze out too much of the lip conditioner — one, because the formula is so rich that only a tiny amount is needed; and two, because the $50 price tag makes every drop of this lip salve incredibly precious. When you first squeeze out the product, you’ll notice it has a white color and a creamy look but, once you smooth it onto your pout, rubbing your lips together, it transforms into a clear salve.
The word “salve” is the most applicable when describing this product since it’s decidedly richer and more unctuous than a standard lip moisturizer. It’s not a weightless lip conditioner, but that viscosity is part of its appeal since it feels indulgent (a sensation that’s amplified by the product’s delightful rose aroma), much like we associate body butters that envelop the body, creating a blanket-like feel, with pampering. That density also helps to make the hydrating effects last longer. Typically, we reach for our lip balm throughout the day, whenever our pouts feel a bit dry or tight, but with the Lancôme Absolue Nourishing Lip Balm, you’ll likely find yourself reapplying once — if at all.
In addition to acacia honey, the salve contains rosehip oil, a key ingredient in the Absolue collection and a popular component of many anti-aging products given that it has a high concentration of nourishing fatty acids, along with vitamin C (which stimulates collagen production), vitamin E (a powerful antioxidant), and beta-carotene (a vitamin A precursor that penetrates the skin’s outermost layers and helps to optimize moisture levels within the dermis, accelerates the cellular regeneration process and thereby prevents the formation of fine lines and wrinkles, and reduces the harmful effects of sun exposure on the skin). Other ingredients include: hyaluronic acid, which binds moisture to the skin; hydrolyzed soy protein, which has moisture retention benefits and contains isoflavones that prevent hormone-induced skin aging; soybean oil, which has a small molecular structure that allows it to easily penetrate the epidermis and which contains isoflavones that, again, aid in cellular regeneration; bilberry (vaccinium myrtillus) extract, which contains anti-aging agents like resveratrol and quercetin, as well as vitamins C, B, and E.
If you have severely dehydrated lips, the Absolue Nourishing Lip Balm Honey-In-Rose will prove life-changing. That said, at $50 per tube, it’s quite an investment, so it’s all a matter of how severe a problem parched lips are for you and, moreover, how much you’re willing to spend in order to address that concern. If you do decide to splurge, however, and you don’t mind the heavier feel on the lips, you’ll be satisfied by the results.
