Aritaum Ginger Sugar Overnight Lip Mask Review

I'm doing a quick mid-week request a review on the Aritaum Ginger Sugar Overnight Lip Mask, which I received earlier this year in a mini haul from Testerkorea.  This is going to be a pretty quick review, because I wasn't able to find a full ingredients list, even on Korean sites.  If you find it somewhere, let me know!

I've been using on nights where my lips feel dry or are chapped, as it's not a 'balm' in the usual sense, it's literally an overnight sleeping pack ... for your lips?

Plus, its got Ginger Sugar in the name.  I love ginger.   I love sugar.  I love sugared (candied) ginger.  I am constantly out of lip balm because I lose them almost instantly.  Sold!

You might be looking at this barely-touched lip balm and think I didn't like it, but that's not the case. 

Details:

Full product name: Aritaum Ginger Sugar Overnight Lip Mask

Purpose: A lip treatment meant to be applied before bed and worn overnight, and then cleaned off in the morning,

Scent:  Sadly it's not at all like candied ginger, but it does have a soft orange scent with a hint of spice.  It doesn't really taste like anything, maybe slightly of the orange oil but definitely nothing sweet that would encourage you to unconsciously lick your lips.

Quantity: 25g, it's actually quite large for a lip product, more like a cuticle cream jar.

Rating: 4.5/5: It's a solid product that I really like, it would be a 5/5 if it smelled strongly of ginger or candied ginger.

Where to get it: I bought mine from Testerkorea, but it's available from other vendors as well.  

Price: 7,000-12,000 KRW, which works out to about $6.50-$11.50, although some places have it at ridiculous prices.  You can get it off Amazon for $10, or eBay for $10-$12.

Repurchase: It would take me forever to get through this, but I definitely would.

Full review:

Part of the reason why the dent in the product is so shallow is that it's actually extremely easy to pick up with just your fingers; a light swipe with a fingertip pulls up enough product to coat your lips, no digging into the product required.

I appreciate that, because often balms are either too firm and require using the back of your fingernail to scrape stuff out which get messy, or it's so melty/soft that you end up scooping up way more than you need.  Somehow, this is both firm enough to be stable yet soft enough to swipe up with no effort.  It is a mystery.

The lid has quite a bit of English (along with a cute ginger sketch) on it, proclaiming:  An overnight lip mask with ginger and sugar that moisturizes your dry chapped lips to create a smooth lip.

They're not kidding.  The first night I used this, I was put off a bit by the thick, almost sticky texture and was certain I was going to wake up with all of it transferred to my pillow and none of it left on my lips.

To my surprise, I woke up the next day with lips that were not flaky and peeling, but instead strangely plumped and still had a noticeable layer of the lip mask still on it.  I am not sure what sorcery they have employed to make this soft, moisturizing, and smooth to apply while still staying on your lips the whole night, but I appreciate it.

I find that any dry flakes that were on my lips lift away and are easy to gently rub off with a fingertip the next day, so there's no need for scrubs or other things that I find a vaguely terrifying prospect to use on chapped lips. D:  No offense if you use one and it works for you, it's just that when my lips are chapped enough to flake, they're really angry and hostile towards any further irritation.

The back has the directions of use, and after I had broken down my tripod, disassembled my jury rigged lights (yes, I still don't have proper lights), packed away my lightbox, and then spent a fruitless hour trying to find the ingredients online, it occurred to me that the OPEN text on the label probably meant I should peel it back.  Derp.

 What did I find there?  Yep, the ingredients, in impossibly small and blurred text that my tablet would completely refuse to pick out to translate, and my attempts to take a quick ad-hoc shot of them to run through an image reader resulted in my camera refusing to focus on it.

Clearly, these ingredients and I were not meant to be.

However, I was able to find some of the 'star ingredients' on jolse.com's listing ($12) for it:

1. Shea Butter, Sugar, Beeswax , MuruMuru Butter in this product forms strong moisturizing layers when it spreads on the lips. So the proportion of moisture on the lips after 24 hours increases to the 17.5 %.
2. It can be used as sleeping pack only for lips for dry & rough lips. We can see that 22.8 % of Dead cells on the lips disappeared after 24 hours
3. Free of Artificial coloring & Fragrance 
4. Ginger + Orange oil helps to activate skin energy & relax body & soul Sugar + Shea Butter give the strong moisturizing by taking care of dead cells & forming moisturizing layers.

So clearly there are some usual balm-y suspects in here but according to the illegible clump of text on the inner label, there is a heck of a lot more stuff in here, probably involving heavy occlusives and mineral oil derivatives.

Usually I dislike products with Shea Butter in them because I find it has a very hard, waxy, and grainy texture but this stuff is smooth as butter, as you can see in the 'swatch' to demo the texture here.

I swiped up about three times as much as I normally use just to get it to show up on camera; trust me when I say a little goes a long way.

I have tried using this as a regular balm, and found the persistent sensation of it sitting on my lips annoying, but it's great for prepping my lips in the morning before I apply a drying lip product.  I have also dabbed a tiny amount over lip tints to add some moisture back into my lips, and it worked well for that as well.  I don't find that it has a high gloss, however, so it's really more of a lip nourishment product than a multi use balm.

Final Thoughts:

I like this product, enough to keep one side of it pristine while I use it so I can decant some with a cosmetic spatula and send to some friends.  Including the one who is on a prescription for Tretinoin and therefore is suffering from severe dry skin including her lips.  I wish I'd had a product like this when I was cross-country skiing back home.

If winter is ravaging your lips and you're looking for something serious to layer on it, texture and visuals be damned, you might really like this product for day use in addition to its overnight mask purpose.

It's pretty novel to have a sleeping mask/mask pack for your lips, but it's a great product for winter and I'm glad I got it; A++ would purchase again!

Do you have a favourite way to beat the winter dry lip blues?  Connect with me on Facebook or Twitter, or leave me a comment below!

-Cat

**Disclaimer: All products reviewed/mentioned in my blog, are 100% purchased with my own money, with a single exception of a press sample I tested & reviewed in 2015 which swore me off of them forever.  This blog contains  both affiliate and non-affiliate links, and clicking the former before you shop means that this blog may receive a small commission to assist in this blog supporting itself.  Please see my Contact Info & Disclaimer policy for more information.