When I look back, it’s amazing to me how much I didn’t know in the beauty world before reading, and consequently writing, blogs.  I had never heard much of anything about MAC’s Tendertones, until I saw the flurry of people excited to see that they would be making a comeback with this season’s “Shop MAC, Cook MAC” collection.  Interested to see what all the fuss was about, and also being a big fan of lip balms in general, I decided to pick one up for myself and join the status quo.  This is my third and final LE purchase of the season, and I’m not so sure I made a good decision there, but…well, I’ll let you read on to see how I feel about it (haha – hooked ya!).First of all, one of the selling points about the Tendertones seem to be about their scent.  To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of it – it’s quite saccharine and reminds me of some lip product I wore when I was in Junior High.  It smells like fruit juice – or maybe those sippies we used to drink as kids!  Maybe that’s what I remember…. ANYWAY, it’s not unpleasant, or a deterrent really, but just isn’t ~selling~ me on the product being more out of this world than any other lip balm.  I far prefer the more adult lemon-sugar scent of the Fresh balms.The texture of the balm is one with quite a bit of slip – it’s not sticky, and glides on the lips very easily – almost too easily for my liking.  I wore this for a day straight and I probably had to reapply every half hour or so, no joke!  I don’t actually mind reapplying product to my lips (because in this twisted mind of mine, it means I’m using it up, which means of course – something new!), but I found the necessity of doing so in this case a bit ridiculous.  It’s not that my lips felt dry exactly – I just felt like I had to continuously reapply more balm for my lips to feel comfortable.  I dunno.  Weird.Lastly, the color.  In the swatches above, I was piling it on quite thick.  In truth, all four Tendertone options were quite sheer; aside from Purring, a juicy tangerine, there was a bronze-golden shade (Hush-Hush), a shimmering lemon-lime (Tread Gently), and Hot ‘n’ Saucy (cherry), and looked like next to nothing swatched and worn (with a bit more color for the red) – however, I still had hope.  I picked Purring as it seemed more appropriate for the season, and I thought perhaps it would show up more than it seemed under the bright lights of the MAC store.  Err…yeah.  See for yourself:Let me tell you now that THAT is essentially what my lips look like au natural.  There is the slightest hint of orange there, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a clear balm.  All things considered, if the other components (the smell and the wear/hydration) were up to snuff, the non-existence of color wouldn’t be a deal at all.  However, the balm overall is quite disappointing in all aspects.  The only bonus is that it contains SPF – but if I have to reapply constantly, I’m concerned that the SPF is going ~poof~ in an instant too, so that may not be a selling point either.

Clearly you can tell that my final LE purchase of the season was a dud.  I considered returning it, but honestly couldn’t be bothered – and I’ll still use it here and there, as it IS a balm and I can always use more of those.  I meant to post this earlier to potentially ward others off wasting their money, but I was just so put off by the product I couldn’t find the ~oomph~ to do it until now (sorry ). Probably my favorite thing about this was the cute box.  That’s really sad, isn’t it?

Have you tried any of the MAC Tendertones, past or present?  What are your thoughts?  Am I just being too hard to please?