TOKYOMILK: LIP ELIXIR AND BONBON LIP BALMS REVIEW

Another one of the archive reviews, but this one is slightly more on the archaic side. 

When I was a lot younger (circa 2010-2013) I dumped a lot of time and money into a (not very successful) Youtube guru attempt (because someone has to be honest here). Retrospectively, awful decision but, I learnt a lot and basically got a feel for the ropes for the general beauty blogging, and a great deal of experience from a less commercialised world of beauty online. 

Nostalgia trip aside, let's get into the products and my experience with this brand. 

Around 2012, I ordered from TokyoMilk, which is a brand by Margot Elena. 

A little background about this brand: It is based out America, and they (even after all this time!) only ship around the United States and Canada. If you'd like to order from them, you'll have to contact customer service by the phone (not email) to arrange for an international shipping. 

At the time, I ordered via my friend who lived in New York, and I did a whole bundle order with my friends. I'm not in touch with any of them anymore, so I don't really remember who or what exactly they bought, but here's a quick picture I still have. 

Forgive me for the awful photo quality, iPhones in 2012 were not so developed.

From what I can work out, the order was: 

BonBon Lip Balms: 

Petite Fours

Iced Green Tea

Rose Water 

?  (I assume this might be Sweet Cream but I might be wrong)

Lip Elixirs 

Salted Caramel (the green bee) 

2 La Vie En Rose (the pink rose) 

Smoked Salt (the grey)

My order was Smoked Salt: 22, Salted Carmel: 36, and one lip balm that I'll update whenever I find and figure out which one it was (if I ever do). 

Taken from here

While I can't remember the scent, I can definitely remember my feelings towards using this. 

The Bon Bon lip balm descriptions vary with each scent, but for Iced Green Tea, was described as : 

Housed in adorable collectible boxes, these highly moisturizing, lightly fragrant lip balms are truly a work of art

Each balm is flavored to leave a hint of sugary sweetness on the lips, making them extra soft, and super kissable

Each lip balm contains a kissing tip and famous kissing quotes to get you ready for the sweetest kiss yet

The base ingredients are :

Sunflower seed oil, Beeswax, Vitamin E, Aloe Vera and Shea Butter

They are 0.22oz, or 6.2g, and retail for $10USD. 

I love the lovely detail and aesthetic consideration that has gone into these little pastel Laudree-esque designs. 

I remember being absolutely captivated by the product shots, and really absolutely loved some of the detail that went into the packaging, and also the sound of some of the descriptions of the scents! 

These all sounded like, quintessential, lovely, pastel, very Marie Antoinette (the movie) aesthetic. 

Sweet Cream was: a satisfying blend of Vanilla Bean, Spun Sugar and hints of Caramelized Cream.

Petit Fours:  imparted with the flavor of delicate pastries filled with caramelized Pear and candied Lavender

Sweet Green Tea is: Candied lemon imparts a hint of sweetness upon delicate Mountain Green Tea, a refreshing drink for the thirstiest of lips.

WayBack machine and my emails can't backtrack information back to 2012, because TokyoMilk primarily does promotion not through text, but mostly through the flashy text images, so they don't load properly and no names get loaded up. 

Taken from here

Compared to the Lip Elixir, I much prefer the beeswax formula. This is quite a thin, non sticky. It feels hard to the touch, but it isn't oily, but it wasn't very moisturizing at all. You can put this on for a day, but you might still have dry lips. 

It feels like it sits like a thin veil on your lips, rather than seeping into your lips. 

I'm pretty picky about my lip balms and contamination of those, so I don't like that this comes in a pot that I had to scrape out, especially because the opening of the pot is actually narrower than the bottom of the pot, so you really have to stick your fingers in there to get the rest of it out. 

For me, I tried to use other items, but only the back of my nail could get a good portion of it out. 

I do however, really like the jar that it comes in. It is very sturdy, and I really love the screw top lid you get with it. I just wish the pot wasn't curved, so you could easily get all the last bits of the balm. 

The scent I got, I actually forgot which one it was, and I think that's a good indication of the amount of scent you're getting from these. 

 From what I can remember, it was probably Iced Green Tea? But it smelt just like a vague sweetness with absolutely no discernible taste of any foodie ingredients, unfortunately. 

I never really used this at all because the smell was barely there, you couldn't really register a great scent, and if I wanted great moisture for my lips, I will always turn to my Holy Grail: Lucas' Papaw Ointment. 

Taken around 2012 when I first received them, and they are huge tins. 

The Lip Elixirs are a whopping 19.6g, or 0.7 oz. They only retail for $7 USD, so they're quite a bargain in terms of bang for your buck. 

They come in these huge metal tins, with a colored long strip sticker across it. 

Firstly, the formula. 

The key ingredients are: 

Conditioning Lip Balm made with Vitamin E, Aloe Leaf, Green Tea and Jasmine.

A picture of the new packaging. Taken from here. They've since addressed the sharp metal edge on the old packaging and looks much sturdier and safer.

This is a petroleum based lip balm, so think, Vaseline but mixed with the essential oils that make up the mixture. 

To me, this was an incredibly sticky, tacky, thick and not very moisturising lip balm at all. It was an oilier version of normal Vaseline, but also would have a bit of give to it, so it would stretch out a little bit more as well. 

Petroleum is also not a popular product, and a lot of people don't prefer to use vaseline at all. 

It sits on the lips like a thick blob of scented sticky paste, and moisturises in the way like Vaseline does, in that it keeps all the moisture from your lips in, without imparting any of its own. 

Safe to say, not a big fan. 

Picture of the old packaging: circa 2013 from Bon Vivant Beauty. Sharp edge beware!

The original packaging was also just a huge metal tin with a sharp edge to it, I never cut myself on the edge, but I never liked it all that much. The way you could just open it up didn't make it feel very hygienic, much worse than the screw lid for the Bon Bon. It wasn't very firmly squished together either, and there is no protective film on top of the balm or anything. 

It also developed some brown spots after a while, though I assume this is due to oxidization/condensation/humidity with the metal rather than the lip balm going bad. 

The Lip Elixir scents I got were 

Salted Caramel: 

Sweet Cream, Sea Salt, Caramelized Sugar, Toasted Vanilla Bean

This smells exactly like this dark rich lovely smokey caramel with a really strong salt note to it. The smell stays consistent, just a very strong and dark caramel with a good portion of that salty whiff at the end of it. 

I loved smelling this, and I would also use this on my skin as a body balm and cuticle balm. 

 Smoked Salt: smoked sea salt, burnt sugar, molasses, and vanilla bean.

I'm so disappointed they discontinued this scent, I hope they bring it back though I doubt it! 

It smells exactly like smoked salt with a touch of burnt sugar, so a bit like the reverse of salted caramel. This smelt almost like a meal, almost like smoked meats kind of smoke, and it isn't sweet at all, it's just a lot of heady dark and very salty, but with a tinge of vanilla in the back to not make it too overwhelmingly main course. 

 As you can tell, despite the formula, I loved both of these scents. Quite a lot. 

I almost wish they came in body sprays, because I really liked these on me. 

Due to how strong they were, you could wear it on your lips and smell it for around 4-5 hours, which is impressive projection for a lip balm. 

While I also don't use it anymore, I still have a vat of Salted Caramel depotted in a plastic container, and it still has that incredible smell despite it being almost 7 years old. 

Additionally, I also really like that TokyoMilk was really generous with their samples. I received a small pot of Lollia cream, and a few one use plastic sachets of other products from the other lines. 

Unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of the body products, but I did like that I got to try a range of her items along with my order. 

While I can't recommend these as lovely lip care products, I'm sure TokyoMilk might also offer a variety of other products that might work better. Their perfumes are much more popular (though none of them are gourmand) and the rest of their catalogue is basically impossible for me to get my hands on.

Personally:  I wouldn't reorder these for the formula, I definitely would rebuy these just for the nostalgia factor. 

I remember living on the top bunk with my roommate and just getting these brought to me, and I'd use it all the time because I didn't own any lip balms and I would just tout this around all the time with that ever present scent of smoked salt and salted caramel on myself for the whole of 2012, and honestly, I'm currently tracking down Smoked Salt off eBay or Amazon just to keep as a relic.

If you are interested in TokyoMilk products or their subbrands, hit up this link for the Salted Caramel lip balm, and also https://www.tokyo-milk.com/ in general for all other goods. They also have other stockists all around the States, but internationals will have to try for dodgy Amazon and eBay sellers like I currently am.