There are chemicals everywhere – in your food, in your fragrances, and in your cosmetics.

While it isn’t realistic to believe you can avoid chemicals and fillers completely, picking more natural products in the makeup aisle can make a difference.

I tried the Yes to Carrots Color Balm Soft Plum. It’s a lightly tinted lip balm that’s 99% natural and free of Petroleum, SLS, and Paraben. It’s also cruelty-free.

Since the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters are all the rage now, I was really curious to experiment and see how this Yes to Carrots Color Balm stacked up.

Did one K.O. the other in beauty boxing? You’re about to find out!

Yes to Carrots Color Balm Soft Plum Pictures

Yes to Carrots Color Balm Soft Plum Ingredients

Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Cera Alba (Beeswax), Ethyl Palmate, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Sorbitan Tristearate, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Behenyl Behenate, CI 77742 (Manganese Violet), CI 77491 (Iron Oxides), Euphorbia Cerifera Cera [Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelila) Wax], Copernicia Cerifera Cera [Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax], Ammonium Glycyrrhizate, Tocopherol, CI 77499 (Iron Oxides), and Daucus Carota Sativa (Carrot) Root Extract.

Yes to Carrots Color Balm Soft Plum Swatches

Bare Lips for Reference

Natural Light Photos

Flash Photos

Claims: TRUSTED, but Product: BUSTED

√ Sheer & lightly tinted
√ Glides on smoothly
√ Buildable coverage
OK Makes lips soft & smooth (Note: Feels lovely initially, but wears away fast & then lips feel dry)

Key Notes

• Name: Yes to Carrots Color Balm Soft Plum
• Collection: Yes to Carrots Color Balm Collection
• Colours Available in the Yes to Carrots Color Balm Collection: Soft Plum, Peachy Keen & Rosy Bloom
• Amount: 3.3 g (0.11 oz.)
• What I Paid: Nothing! (This was sent to me by PR. Retails for $5.99 USD.)
• Where to Buy: Yes to Carrots website, Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart, ULTA, Meijer, Kroger & maybe some Shoppers Drug Marts

Yes to Carrots Color Balm Soft Plum Review

Colour

The Yes to Carrots Color Balm in Soft Plum certainly lives up to its name. The colour is a reddish brown that’s reminiscent of bricks. It would work well on a lot of diverse skin tones from the very fair to the very rich.

On me, it looked very natural and deepened up my lips a little, and I found it easy-to-wear because it wasn’t very bold.

The pigmentation is subtle, and I would say that it really is more like a sheer-tinted lip balm (as advertised) and not moderately to heavily pigmented like the beloved lipstick-esque Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter Lollipop, which I previously reviewed and swatched.

The Soft Plum Yes to Carrots Color Balm would be ideal for those who really don’t want dramatic pigmentation and prefer to stick to the typical balm formula. If you’re hoping to find a more natural version of the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters, your search continues.

Buildable Coverage

All the swatches in my photos are with probably 10 swipes of product. With just a single layer, it pretty much just looks like clear gloss. You really need to load the stuff on in order to get more pigmentation.

Is It Moisturizing?

Don’t chuck out your heavy-duty lip balm. This is only slightly moisturizing when you first slick it on. It feels smooth, but it didn’t heal my lips. And, actually, when the balm wore off, my lips actually felt dry.

Finish

I like how the Color Balm by Yes to Carrots makes your lips look glossy (initially), but the interesting thing is that the formulation is very thin and on the slippery side. (It’s not as greasy as Vaseline, but it’s not matte like a typical beeswax lip balm.)

Application

It glides smoothly on your lips, and the twist-up tube applicator makes it easy to slick on just the right amount of product.

What Is the Wear Time?

Unlike the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in Lollipop that lasted a long time on me, the Yes to Carrots Color Balm in Soft Plum faded and then disappeared so quickly. After about 30 minutes, I could barely see it on my lips…and during that time, I didn’t eat, drink, or talk a lot.

Expect to reapply the Yes to Carrots Color Balm often if you want to maintain the same colour payoff that you get initially.

Smell & Taste

There’s a waxy smell, which makes sense because beeswax can be found near the top of the ingredients list. I’m not a fan of the smell, but it’s very faint, so perhaps it won’t bother you. And after you wear it for a while, you don’t notice the smell as much.

However, you know how sometimes when a lip product smells, you can ‘taste’ it without licking your lips? This balm gave me that ‘taste’, and while it wasn’t horrible, I really prefer my lip products to have zero smell and ‘taste’…unless it’s like vanilla cake batter scent, which the MAC lipsticks have.

Ingredients

The plus side to the Yes to Carrots Color Balm in Soft Plum is that it’s 99% natural, which could be the advantage that will win some of you over.

Unlike the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters that are mostly synthetic, the Yes to Carrots Color Balms have ingredients like various oils and root extract. It doesn’t contain any Petroleum, SLS, or Paraben.

Animal-Friendly

You’ll be happy to know that the Yes to Carrots Color Balm in Soft Plum is cruelty-free.

Pros No Petroleum, SLS, or Paraben Creates a glossy look (initially) Provides a light tint 99% natural product Easy-to-wear colour Buildable coverage Cruelty-free

Cons Lips feel dry after the product wears off (hydration isn’t long-lasting) Colour fades quickly Waxy smell & ‘taste’ Requires numerous swipes of product to achieve greater pigmentation

Final Verdict: 5.5/10

I really appreciate how Yes to Carrots has provided a more natural alternative to the popular Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters, but I feel like it fell short in terms of the formula. (If it left my lips feeling more hydrated after wearing it, I would’ve bumped up the Final Verdict Score.)

This product would be good for those who aren’t ready for a dramatic punch of lip colour that a lipstick would deliver. It’s not a far step from a regular lip balm, so the shift would be very easy to make.

Do you read the ingredients when you buy makeup? Are you okay with sacrificing pigmentation for a more natural product? What Yes to Carrots items have you tried?