background artwork: marco mazzoni featured in Hi-Fructose Magazine

I’ve heard about the  wonders of Fresh’s Sugar Lip Treatment for years; Must-Have Makeup Basic! Beauty Editor favorite! Celebrity Staple! As an avid magazine reader and beauty product freak, all of those things *should* have seduced me to buy.  Sure, I’ve gotten nanoseconds away from point of purchase with a box of Lip Treatment in my hand, but the punishing price tag always won in the end. How many times have I ceremoniously dump it, with the other expensive, homeless glosses,  back into the impulse buy bins that surround Sephora’s registers? Dozens?  ”There should be no justifiable reason for which a person of modest means should pay that much for lip tint,” I could hear my mother saying  in my head. And she would be right–there are concert tickets, parties, life-changing experiences to be had at that price.

But this year, something changed.  See, all those last minute grabs from Sephora’s impulse buy bins hadn’t gotten the actual product in my hands–I was only carrying the box it was packaged in. Once I discovered what exactly was inside, the lip treatment categorically shifted from splurge to essential investment within seconds.  Yes, the product is as good as they say–it nourishes chapped, cracked and dry lips while livening up the pucker with a hint of color. And, yum, it smells faintly of  sugar-spiked lemonade made by go-getter kids in American suburbs. But past the nostalgia and functionality, what sold me on the gloss is the so-sensible-it’s-genius packaging.

First, the stuff isn’t packaged in a pot (which requires clean fingers for dipping–something impossible to maintain when on the go). Instead, it’s housed in a  substantial but pretty tube that’s been dipped in washed-out metallic shades.  The tip of the tint is round and flat, not angled like a lipstick, which is perfect, because we’re our bombing the lips with the stuff, not precisely applying it like with a rich, matte color. But the pièce de résistance is its screw-top lid (shown in the pic above). Once that sucker is secure, there is absolutely zero chance that the honey, plum, or rose’ tint will end up on the bottom of my supple Italian leather bag.  Suddenly the price tag seemed perfectly practical–I’m not just buying a lip product here, I’m paying for thoughtful design. And in a culture riddled with half-assed production (Horrible Bosses, phones that block signals when you hold them, anal-leakage causing reduced fat potato chips), good design is a pleasure to pay for.