Fresh Sugar Lip Care: Lip Treatment SPF 15 & Advanced Therapy, Lip Shine and Lip Polish Reviews

I've been hooked on Fresh Sugar Tinted Lip Treatments since I first tried them back in 2011; their buttery, highly emollient, moisturizing texture combined with a yummy lemon vanilla scent makes them one of my favorite everyday lip products. While I do think they're very pricey for what they are, luckily Sephora is pretty generous with including the Fresh Sugar Lip Care range in various little sample pouches or as coupon codes with an online order - which is how I've managed to accumulate four different products in the range. Shall we take a look?

I think the Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment SPF 15 ($22.50 for 0.15 oz, both in the clear and tinted versions; here's my review and swatches of the Tulip shade) is the best known product in this range via Sephora's Beauty Insider Birthday Gift a couple years back. I really like this lip balm, either on its own (especially in harsh weather conditions) or in a thin layer under a lipstick. However, Claire recently pointed out that the chemical sunscreen ingredient in these balms is oxybenzone, which is highly controversial due to its toxicity in larger doses - and let's be honest, in a lip balm, you really are ingesting the stuff. On Sephora's website, the sunscreen composition for this balm is avobenzone and octinoxate, so I'm thinking the formula must have been updated at some point; mine still have the oxybenzone though :(

If you'd rather skip the whole sunscreen debacle, the Sugar Advanced Therapy Lip Treatment ($25 for 0.15 oz) may be something worth looking into. Frankly speaking, I can't detect much difference in texture or performance between Advanced Therapy and the regular Lip Treatment, but if you compare both ingredients' lists, they do vary slightly, the most significant diference being the inclusion of cocoa butter and hyaluronic acid in the former (Advanced Therapy claims to have age-delaying properties from 'hyaluronic spheres'). However, sodium hyaluronate is towards the very end of the INCI list, suggesting there's a very, very small amount of it in the product, so I'd say the claims are rather far-fetched. I've been using Advanced Therapy on my lips before bedtime, and I do think it keeps my lips moisturized throughout the night, but I don't think it's as effective as my all-time favorite night time lip balm, the Nuxe Reve de Miel - which at $19 for 0.52 oz, is also significantly cheaper per ounce than the Fresh balm.

I was however pleasantly surprised by the Fresh Sugar Shine Lip Treatment ($18.50 for 0.2 oz, I have the Clear shade). What I thought would be just a mediocre lip gloss designed to increase the profits from the popular Sugar range turned out to be a lovely liquid lip oil type of product. The Sugar Shine actually seems to contain more hyaluronic acid than the Advanced Therapy balm, in addition to cocoa, mango and cupuaçu butters. I don't know if it necessarily keeps my lips moisturized for 6 hours as it claims to do, but because of its thicker, viscous but unsticky texture, it cushions my lips in a protective layer, and helps to disguise dry flakes and vertical lip lines. One gripe I have with my mini size is that the stopper takes off too much product from the wand, so I have to dip back two or three times to coat my lips - I don't know if that's an issue with the full size as well. I would consider purchasing the Shine Lip Treatment in the future, maybe in a fun bright shade like Cherry or Berry.

Lastly, we have the Fresh Sugar Lip Polish ($22.50 for 0.6 oz), a (you guessed it!) brown sugar lip scrub enriched with shea butter, meadowfoam & grape seed oils and Vitamin E. I don't have huge experience with lip scrubs apart from Lush and I've said in the past that I think them a somewhat superfluous concept, but I think the Fresh version is a really solid product: scrubby enough to get rid of the flakes but in a more emollient base that provides a good slip and a moisturizing layer on the lips afterwards. So if you like lip scrubs, I would definitely recommend giving this one a go - it's definitely superior to Lush Mint Julips that I had in the past, but it's also a lot pricier.

Are you a fan of Fresh Sugar lip products? Beauty fanatics seem to be somewhat divided in this respect - I know many of you enjoy the range as much as I do, but it seems a lot of folks dislike that heavy, slippy texture in a lip balm. What is your current go-to lip conditioning product?