During the month of October, TEN PERCENT of all sales of Everything Nice Lip & Cheek Tint goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Whether you are interested in this product or not, please donate your time or money, in any way you see fit, to help find a cure.

Everything Nice Lip & Cheek Tint has always been my problem child. From curdling to burning to downright lack of color and flavor, she’s come a long way to become one of the prettiest little lip and cheek tints you ever did see!

It started because, in case you haven’t noticed, I have a bit of an obsession with roses. This one in particular was created because I had brought bubble gum and cotton candy flavor oils that I really liked but (surprise) found a little too sweet-smelling for my tastes. I love the powdery dryness of rose flavors, so I decided to combine them all together for a candied rose flavor (more on that later). I also had a fluorescent pink pigment which I thought would be perfect! That’s where it all went wrong.

To make a long story short, that pigment was a nightmare. This is what happened the first time I used it:

Yeah, not good. So I tried again. And again. You get the picture. I researched and Googled and tore my hair out trying every trick in the book to make this stuff work, but I pretty much got no where with it. Eventually I was able to get a very sheer pink, nothing like what I was going for, but very pretty and, as luck would have it, very popular!

Back to the scent. Still… so… sweet! And no matter what I did, I just couldn’t hit the right balance of sugar and floral. Eventually I decided to add peppermint essential oil, and BAM! A perfect blend of bubble-mint and fresh-cut roses. Everything would be nice if all my ingredients would just play along. So I gave up on the neon pink idea and blended my own opaque bubble-gum pink color. Everything nice, indeed.

A word of advice on opacity, however: because my formula is pretty firm with lots of moisturizing cocoa butter, etc., the best results will be obtained by warming the tube slightly before use. I usually do so about 5 minutes before application by putting it in my pocket or (real talk) down my bra. Then it’s just soft enough to be smooth and creamy and glide on opaque.

Next week’s Product Profile will be on another lip & cheek tint – Holly Berry. That’s right: we’re starting this year’s CHRISTMAS Product Profiles! All Christmas products will be available on the website starting October 15th. I know it’s really early, but I can’t help it, I just love the holidays! We won’t even get through all of the Product Profiles this year – there’s just too much good stuff. Plus, look out for seasonal recipes (hopefully at least one a week).