Enjoy the ease of chapstick with the polish of lipstick

This revolutionized my life! Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but not much.

I'm not a big lipstick person. It feels too waxy, too "made up" to wear on any but the dressiest occasions. But I do love eye makeup, and as you know, your face can look really funny with made-up eyes and naked lips.

Also, I like chapstick/lip balm/things of that sort. But they tend not to offer color, or when they do, it's smeary clown-y color. And some of them leave your lips feeling pretty slippery.

So imagine me, looking for something that moisturizes my lips, but not too much; that gives me color, but not too much; and, because I'm something of a cheapskate, I'm looking for a product that does all of this without costing more than about $8.

It exists! It's Neutrogena Lip Sheers!

I wear the "Shimmering Blush" shade, but there are about ten shades, all designed to be subtle. The Shimmering Blush shade is a soft pink with kind of an earthy tinge to it -- not cotton-candy pink, but more lip-color pink. It does have the faintest bit of shimmer to it, but this is not glitter or aggressive sparkle or anything like that. It's mostly a light-catching, light-reflecting property. This shade looks like my natural lip color, but more polished and finished than my plain old naked lips.

It's such a great shade, I can apply it as often as I'd apply chapstick without getting a lot of buildup or too much color. I can also apply it without a mirror, since it's a subtle color and doesn't require precision. That's great when I'm on the go!

The tube is about 1/2"-3/4" longer than your typical chapstick tube, and it's maybe a little thinner around. It's shiny silver -- shiny enough that you can use the end as a mirror in a pinch. The lid snaps on snugly, but it's not so tight that you can't get it off easily. You can fit the tube in your pocket of your jeans without any problem, if you're trying to travel light.

The only bummer about this product is that it does not have very good shade selection information in the drugstore. It just has little cards displayed under each bin to show you what color each shade is. But these cards are inevitably snapped under thick plastic, and the colors printed on the cards all look about the same. These are all very sheer shades, though, so you can't screw up too badly, but it would be nice to get a more accurate color selector.

Overall, though, this is a great everyday choice for your lips -- color and moisture without too much work!