Heyy guys, Ralf here! I ran out of my hello glow lip balm and I decided to buy a new lip balm, however, instead of buying my usual, my attention was drawn towards a lip balm called “EB Daily Dose Peptide Lip Care” by Ever Bilena.
Now before we go any further, you already know the drill, we’re going to be talking about the history of this filipino beauty classic and take a deep dive into their origins.
Now Ever Bilena Cosmetics, Inc., the parent company of Ever Bilena, was first started as a nail polish brand by its founder, Dioceldo Sy, the “father of philippine cosmetics” in 1983, According to "CHiNOY Profiles: Dioceldo Sy Part 1 (Extended Profile)" , Dioceldo started selling nail polish because it was the “in” thing at the time.
He then expanded to other makeup products like eyeshadow, lipstick, etc. and the business grew three times in 1986 after renewed confidence in the Philippine economy post-EDSA Revolution caused his supplier in Taiwan to extend some credit lines to him.
During this time he noticed that the foreign brands were quite expensive for the locals, so he set out to create affordable makeup products of “global quality”, to help Filipinas be pretty.
this led him to different countries in Europe to meet different partners who were supplying “branded cosmetics”.
He always made it a point to sell his product at 50% of the minimum wage, which worked.
According to Ever Bilena’s about us page on their website and their LinkedIn, they are The Philippines’s #1 cosmetics company. They currently have 250,000+ direct resellers, 1,600 employees, and 1000 SKUs, which are codes made up of letters and numbers to represent detailed information about a product, which in this case, is a lip balm.
The Ever Bilena Daily Dose Peptide Lip Care lip balm is, according to its shopee page, an “intensely nourishing lip formula that protects with ultra-hydrating ingredients and SPF 30 sun protection.” and it also claims to add high-shine gloss and improve the appearance of dry, cracked and chapped lips.
As of writing, Romatique is actually sold out and the product has 2.4k ratings and 9k sales (this includes all four shades) in shopee, so I am very lucky to have bought this in the right time.
This lip balm has a LOT of ingredients and a part of the ingredients list was blocked by the flashback caused by the packaging’s glossy texture reflecting the light from my flashlight.
so... that means we’ll only be talking about the top 10 ingredients, which are as follows :
It used as a polymer and plasticizer agent.
It is a synthetic oil that can replace mineral or silicone oils.
It is used as a shine enhancer, emollient, and waterproofer.
It is a long chain fatty acid emollient used in lip balms and lipsticks, it can be synthetic or derived from coconut oil.
It happens when Styrene/Isoprene Copolymer is hydrogenated in a “controlled” way.
It is used as a film-forming agent.
It is a colorless, oil-soluble liquid that works as a UVB sunscreen. It slowly becomes unstable when exposed to sunlight (loses 10% of protection after 35 minutes), is mixed in with other sunscreens agents for stability, and it does not really protect against UVA.
It absorbs UVB rays, and is a known weak hormone disruptor, with the ability to make human breast cancer cells grow 3.5x larger.
It is a colorless to light yellowish oily liquid that’s used to block out & filter UVB waves.
It is used to treat or prevent skin irritation, and can protect the skin from both UVB and UVA.
It is used in a wide variety of products to replace lanolin and is used as an emollient.
It is used to help heal skin and retain moisture by forming a waterproof barrier.
(note : the ingredients are not arranged in a descending manner or in any manner at all.)
Now that we know what's in this lip balm, what do i have to say about it?
I think the Ever Bilena Daily Dose Peptide Lip Care lives up to its claims, I love how shiny it is, it is very cushy like the squad melon lip oil although I do think that is a little bit sticky, I found that the lip balm sometimes just leaks out of the tube, not in a liquidy spilled glass of milk way but in a britney spears in hawaii 1999 way, I don’t know if this was caused by my actions, but please do take note of this.
It will also have a chance of pilling if you have certain products over your lips. I find that this formula doesn’t work well with their lip oil on top of it, which i think might be because i put it on way too late, after the lip balm has dried, and I will talk about their lip oil soon.
I really love the fact that they decided to add spf 30 into this formula, i love the feeling of being protected from the sun’s UV rays, though homosalate makes me a bit scared, but honestly, as long as I'm not eating a whole tub of it in one sitting, I’ll hopefully be fine,and I can just sweep it under the rug.
The color itself is quite muted out of the tube. I heard from Monica Ravi that muted tones just looked better on her olive skin, and as a tan olive this definitely influenced my decision to buy this shade.
It looks very nice and natural, it’s a soft pink on my lips, it is a very safe, “you can definitely get away with this" shade, I love using it everyday, with the lip oil on top, even though I know it does have a risk of making it pill.
Overall, I think this lip balm is a 7/10, i removed the 3 points because it kept rising and escaping from its package without me squeezing it, it has a chance of pilling and because of homosalate’s risks, but honestly, I don't really mind, I eat a credit card’s worth of microplastics a month, so… homosalate’s not my biggest concern, besides, it probably only has a little bit in it so I don't give a dang, though I will still take off a point here, because, as much as it doesn’t matter to me, it still does matter to someone, and besides, not everyone wants an extra hormone disruptor to go with their big pile of hormone-disrupting microplastics.
Anyways, see you on the other side!
-Ralf