This Tinted Lip Balm From a Hailey Bieber-Approved Makeup Brand Leaves Me With the Perfect Fall Pout

Somehow, without much logic or reason, I ended up on Parisian TikTok. There I sat in California, with a French vocabulary limited to Lady Marmalade, watching someone on the other side of the world go to the hair salon. While the end cut was quite chic — queue Fleabag’s “It’s French” — what I came away with was how fall-ready “French girl” makeup is. Consisting of a warm lip color that’s also smudged on the cheeks with a simple eye, it shouted, “Pair me with a cable knit sweater and riding boots.” And since I first saw that video (which, due to not speaking that language, I have not found again), I’ve been on the hunt for a lip product that can help me achieve that effortless fall look. As it turns out, all I needed was a simple tinted lip balm from one popular clean beauty brand.

While swatching different products at Sephora, I came across Kosas’ LipFuel. My knowledge of the brand went only so far as knowing that celebrities like Hailey Bieber and InStyle editors swore by it. It quickly became clear why between the balm’s hydrating formula and beautiful color payoff. I immediately put everything else I was looking at down and headed straight to checkout with the LipFuel Lip Balm in the shade Flow, and I have been so happy I did.

Shop now: $18; kosas.com

The $18 lip balm has quickly become my go-to lip product; the shade Flow has just the right amount of warmth, somewhere between brown and peach, to compliment my pale complexion. Because I love a simple and cohesive makeup look, after I swipe the balm on my lips twice, I smudge just a bit of it on the apples of my cheeks as well and blend it in with my fingers. Thanks to the buttery formula, it easily shears out on my skin for a blushing-from-within sort of radiance, and also lasts for hours on my lips.

Even though finding a warm fall color is what I originally set out to do, what I might love the most about this product is how hydrating it is. LipFuel uses hyaluronic acid and vitamin E to give your pout a punch of moisture, while konjac root protects the lips. According to Kosas, those who used the lip balm in a clinical trial noticed increased plumpness, hydration, smoothness, and firmness. 

While I opted for Flow, this lip balm is also available in two other shades – Rush and Pulse – as well as the clear Baseline. One customer wrote that Pulse is, “a bright pink…tone that blends in well,” offering “great hydration” and leaving their lips feeling “plump and happy.” Another shopper agreed that the balm is “super hydrating” and that the color Flow has “the perfect amount of pigment…replacing [their] Charlotte Tilbury and Mac lipsticks.”

You can get this hydrating lip balm for $18 on Kosas, or grab the brand’s Winter Warmup Set for only $25, which includes full-size versions of Flow, Rush, and Baseline.

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