Eco Lips Review and Giveaway [CLOSED]

I love lip balms!  I think I've mentioned that before.  When I was approached by Eco Lips to host a review and giveaway, I jumped at the chance because it presented the perfect opportunity to highlight a fantastic organic, cruelty-free company as well as allow myself and one lucky reader to try their products!

The labels are ripped because the photos I took before using the balms came out poorly

I have used a few Eco Lips products before and they've worked amazingly well.  I'll take a natural lip balm over a synthetic one any day (what I mean by synthetic is the ones that contain ingredients like petrolatum, etc) because they just work.  I hate the major-brand ones you can get at any drugstore because they just coat your lips and end up making them feel worse.  Natural lip balms made from organic ingredients have always felt better and performed better to me.

There are so many amazing things to say about Eco Lips that this post could get a little lengthy.  In an effort to keep it from getting tl;dr, I'm going to use bullet points:

• Eco Lips recently reformulated their products (on 10 October 2012) in an effort to better support fair trade.  They've increased the FTC (Fair Trade Certified) ingredients in their products and are purchasing more FTC raw ingredients.  What does this mean?  By supporting fair trade, Eco Lips is helping to promote ethical business practices by helping fair trade workers earn a living and providing awareness to consumers.
• Eco Lips products are USDA certified organic.  A USDA certification is only gained when the ingredients used are food-grade quality, meaning you could eat them.  I wouldn't recommend eating one of their lip balms whole, but it makes me feel a lot better knowing that I'm putting organic ingredients on my lips instead of chemicals.
• Eco Lips has vegan options available that don't contain beeswax.
• Last, but definitely not least, my favorite aspect of Eco Lips is that they are an entirely cruelty-free company.  Absolutely no animal testing has been done on these products at any stage!

So, in a nutshell, Eco Lips is awesome.  Here are the balms that I was lucky to try:

The Renew: Orange Spice balm from the ONE WORLD collection is perfect for me!  I love all things spice and orange and spice is one of my favorite combos.  This is a nice big, chubby stick (.25 oz) that's made from 40% recycled content.  It's Fair Trade Certified and feels so smooth and wonderful on my lips.  The base is FTC cocoa butter, and it also contains argan oil "to revitalize skin and neutralize free radicals."  I love this one.  The scent, the recycled packaging, the fair trade and USDA organic certifications--what's not to love?  The other scents/flavors are Restore (Coconut Ginger) and Relax (Lavender Lemon).

The Dagoba: Mint balm is my favorite out of the pack!  I was so excited to receive one of these because I received a Roseberry one in an Eco Emi box, but I left it out in my car and it melted (I tried re-freezing it but it just wasn't pretty).  I didn't know until recently that Dagoba is a chocolate company, and Eco Lips paired with them to create this line of lip balms.  The other flavors are the aforementioned Roseberry and also Lavender.  This is mint chocolate heaven!  I absolutely love the scent, and it glides on just as smoothly as the Renew balm.

I really wanted to love the Mocha Velvet EcoTint as much as the previous two, but the shade just isn't flattering on me.  It's a deep chocolate that is in itself beautiful, but it was just a little too dark on my yellow-undertoned skin.  I could definitely see this on someone who wanted a dark, dramatic look.  But aside from the color, it's unscented and still felt smooth and moisturizing.  The other shades available are Moonstone, Sugar Plum, and Coralyte.  All of them contain over 90% certified organic ingredients.

The Eco Lips Gold balm is for the lip balm purist.  It's unscented and colorless, and it's fantastic at providing long-lasting moisture.  I think this one is great for year-round use, but especially for the approaching winter months.  I live in a climate that sees lots of snow and harsh winds, so chapped lips can come easily if you aren't prepared.  I would recommend this balm to anyone and everyone; I promise that it's going to last you much longer than the petrolatum-based junk that you might be using currently.

Bottom Line: I love Eco Lips for providing consumers with organic, FTC, and cruelty-free lip balms.  Even if you don't care about any of those things (ah!), I'm certain you'll still love these balms as much as I do because they just flat-out work.  There's nothing better than an organic, natural balm because they don't just sit on top of your lips, their ingredients work to soothe and last.

• Visit Eco Lips and view their full line of products, including balms made from Honest Kids flavors!
• Connect with them on Facebook and Twitter

Well after reading all of that, would you like a chance to win a prize pack of Eco Lips balms?  Their awesome team was kind enough to provide eight of them for one of my readers to win!  Enter using the Rafflecopter form after the cut.

Here's what you can win!  Due to limited variety in stock, Eco Lips is unable to fulfill flavor requests from the winner.

• 1 Dagoba Chocolate Balm
• 1 ONE WORLD Balm
• 1 Gold Balm
• 1 EcoTint Balm
• 1 Pure & Simple Balm
• 1 Honest Kids Balm
• 1 Hemp Balm
• 1 Caribeener clip

This sweepstakes is open to U.S. residents aged 18+ only. It begins today, 1 November 2012, and ends at 12:01 AM EST on 9 November 2012.  Participants must complete both mandatory entries.  One winner will be selected at random via the Rafflecopter widget and notified by email. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to claim their prize, or a new winner will be chosen. All entries will be verified. The sponsor is responsible for shipping the winner their prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*Disclaimer: I received these products for free to facilitate my review.  I was not monetarily compensated for this review and the honest opinions here are entirely my own.