Fresh Sugar Rose Treatment vs Korres Lip Butter Stick (and Revlon Lip Butter)

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about the Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment. It’s the new hyped up product that people have been raving about. It has been popping up in blogs and vlogs all over the place. Fresh isn’t widely available in the UK so I was quite excited when I got a sample of their product in my January Birtchbox. I decided to review it by comparing it to my all time favourite lip balm/lipstick and a product I used every single day in 2012: Korres Mandarin Lip Butter Stick.

Fresh Lip Rose Treatment (a sample, less than half of the original size) and Korres Lip Butter Stick in Mandarin

I’ll start by saying that I am a big fan of tinted lip balms. I don’t often wear lipsticks as they tend to rub off quite quickly. I also remember reading somewhere that an average woman ‘eats’ a couple of lipsticks per year! Hence, I prefer to use natural, paraben-free lip balms on my lips. Tinted lip balms nourish and protect your lips and prevent them from chapping. In addition, they add a hint of colour to your lips and some, like Korres, give quite an intensive colour. Some of them are matte while others have a bit of shimmer in them. When I was at Uni I used to love Nivea tinted lip balm in Cherry. It gave my lips a beautiful deep red tint. It had just the right amount of colour, not too sheer, but still very natural. Unfortunately, Nivea discontinued this product in Europe. I was able to find it in South Korea 3 years ago but my backups are long gone now. So I looked for another product that could do the same thing.

Having tried a lot of products, I finally found Korres Mandarin Lip Butter Stick. I use it every single day and it’s simply brilliant. Here is how it compares to Fresh.

Swatches of Korres Lip Butter Stick in Mandarin and Fresh Sugar Rose Lip Treatment

Similarities

Both products do really well in terms of moisturising and nourishing my lips. They also leave the lips looking glossy but natural and without machining them sticky like lip glosses.

They are both very easy to use and do not require a lot of precision. You can easily apply them without a mirror and on the go. Points for convenience!

Korres Lip Butter Stick in Mandarin

Fresh Sugar Rose Lip Treatment

Differences

Korres lip butters are matte while Fresh Lip Treatment has a tinny bit of shimmer.

Korres lip balm is not scented. Fresh has a distinct mint smell and taste. Personally, I’m not a fan of minty lip products but I’m sure many people will like that.

Korres products are paraben-free, mineral oil-free, silicone-free, propylene glycol-free, and ethanolamine-free. Fresh doesn’t list parabens in their ingredients list but it also doesn’t say it’s paraben-free. They are obviously not required by law to list them. In my experience, if a company doesn’t clearly state that the product is paraben-free it means it isn’t.  Korres has SPF 15, not that it matters in London where sun rays rarely penetrate the thick layer of grey clouds that covers the city…

The main difference between the two comes down to colour and pigmentation. Fresh Lip Treatment is a really sheer lip balm. To be fair, the colour I got is one of the palest ones. I’ve seen swatches of other shades and they don’t look too pigmented either. The Lip treatment leaves a lovely shine and a hint of colour on your lips but otherwise is almost invisible. It’s clearly more of a lip care product than a make up one. Korres on the other hand, works amazingly. It leaves my lips looking nice and red but still very natural. It is an great alternative to a lipstick. In fact it is like lipstick and lip gloss combined: it’s pigmented and gives a lovely glossy finish. Fresh Lip treatment does the same just without the colour.

One thing that Fresh wins hands down on is packaging. While Korres Lip butters’ packaging looks like… well, the majority of lip balms out there, Fresh sleek packaging resembles high-end lipsticks. It’s a lovely metallic tube with a screw-on metallic top cover. It’s 10 out of 10 for packaging!

Fresh Sugar Rose Lip Treatment

Revlon Lip Butters. Where do they come in?

Revlon Lip Butters are a force to be reckoned with. They are similar to Korres lip balms: they give just the right amount of colour and gloss. Still they have parabens and most of the shades have shimmer. This can look nice but most of the time I prefer a matte colour. My favourite shade is Macaroon. It’s quite similar to my natural lip shade just deeper and richer. Still, I find Revlon products to be a bit ‘chunky’. What I mean by this is that towards the end of the day, after several applications I can see lines forming in the corners of my lips from the layers of product accumulated throughout the day. This doesn’t happen with Korres Lip Balms. Revlon Lip Butters aren’t as user-friendly as the other two. They are also ‘messier’ than Korres and Fresh lip balms. They are so buttery that they smudge all over the packaging.

Final Ruling

Korres Lip Butter Sticks are the most pigmented of the three products. They do not contain any harmful ingredients and have an SPF. They can be used under a lipstick of instead of it. If you like Revlon Lip butters or Fresh Lip treatments I would encourage you to try Korres Lip Butter Sticks. They come in a number of shades, Mandarin is one of the two darkest ones. They can be purchased on stores or online (for example here). If you live in London you can swatch them in Liberty London (as well as other stores). They cost £6.50-£7.

 

I like all three products a lot. They are all excellent. I prefer Korres because of the amazing pigmentation and natural ingredients. Out of the three it works best for me.

Coming up:

Tomorrow: Ole Henriksen Englighten Me Skin Tone Corrector