Review by the Lip Balm Wrangler!

Our mini balms, aka "Bullet Balms", were featured today on Christina (the Lip Balm Wrangler)'s blog, and we are thrilled that our lip balms received 5 out of 5 twists! Thank you, Christina, for the absolutely lovely review!

Check out her review of 5 flavors at her blog.

Be sure to subscribe to posts at LipBalmWrangler.com or visit Christina's Facebook for her thoughts on lip balms and glosses of all sizes and flavors!

Waterproof Paper Comparison - Part 2 - OnlineLabels.com

Part 2 - OnlineLabels.com's Matte Weatherproof paper

The biggest "pro" for me was that the colors were dead-on exactly as they looked in Photoshop. Green, Red, Tan. Like I said, I can do color tests all day, but to have them come out right the first try is really nice too! :-) The price for buying these in bulk would also be cheaper than BB's paper- not by much, but it's a consideration when you're starting out.

Now, unfortunately, several "cons"... As you can see, compared to the crispness of the text from BrambleBerry.com's paper, this text looks cool but rather blob-like. It made the small text almost impossible to read (even though I knew what all of it said).

On top of that- see the little nicks and scratches on the label? Those are not intentional... the ink on the paper doesn't soak in, but sits on top. It doesn't take much of a bump to take off the layer of ink and leaves behind a bright shiny white layer beneath. These two sticks in the picture above look pretty abused, but really they've just been sitting in a baggie with other sticks... objects that have no pointy bits shouldn't scratch each other up that bad! Can you imagine how horrible they'd look after a day's jostling in a pocket or purse? Ouch! And worst of all... when you want to take a label up to reposition it a bit- which will happen with pretty much every label- the ink just clumps where it was bent backward and falls off. When this happened I actually yelled "Noooooooo!" like when Vader told Luke he was his father...

I went back and checked to see if I had gotten the right paper for our printer, and indeed I had. It's disappointing that it can look SO good but perform rather badly. It kind of made me wonder if I had gotten paper for the wrong purpose- maybe these labels were supposed to be for something more temporary or stationary (like a bottle that would stay in the shower or cupboard for the most part)?

Well, that's a review of the two kinds of paper I've tried so far! I hope if someone out there finds a brand of label paper they like that they'll share! :-)

Waterproof Paper Comparison - Part 1 - Bramble Berry

I wanted to show you a comparison between two waterproof labels- one from BrambleBerry.com, and one from OnlineLabels.com. They each had pros and cons, so if you're thinking of making the change from plain paper labels to waterproof hopefully this will be helpful. :-)

The labels side by side. On the left, BrambleBerry.com, on the right, OnlineLabels.com

Part One - BrambleBerry.com's Waterproof Label paper

The thing that I really like about Brambleberry's waterproof paper is that the print stays crisp and clear- that was more important to me than anything because I want people to be able to see if there's anything in the product that they may be allergic to or don't want to use. Even the tiny print on the Mini-tubes is clear and readable (even if you've got to grab the magnifying glass.)

The cons are small but worth mentioning- First, the colors aren't true from what they looked like in Photoshop. The two different label styles above are exactly the same colors, believe it or not! It may have to do with the paper itself (maybe how it makes the ink waterproof) or the way the colors translate from the way they look on my monitor to the paper itself ("PEBKAC", they call it. Always something to consider when doing graphic design!).

Does it make the labels look bad? No- when someone buys your product they won't know the color you were aiming for, so that's okay. You'll look at your labels with your critical graphic designer/printer eye, but everyone else will just think they're beautiful. :-)

Would it prevent me from buying these labels? No- I can color test all day if need be to get the colors the way I want them... (and I do that anyway!) and adding a few minutes for print testing is no problem. I learned that it's important to do print tests on the paper you're actually going to use for the labels- these labels were color true to what I wanted when I printed them on regular printer paper, back in the day when I had one sample label sheet and wanted to save it. (Tip: I always have strips of paper left over from sheets of labels- if you stick them well to a plain sheet of paper they can be used for color tests, or printed on to make nice looking "tamper evident" strips for lotions and scrubs, etc. Just make sure you orient them from top-to-bottom rather than side to side... I don't want to be responsible for a major paper jam!)

Second, (which is actually... mostly a "pro") the paper is very thick- not card-stock thick, but noticeably thicker than plain paper, so if your label ends on the curve of a product it'll take a bit of clear packing tape or a dot of glue to make it stick down. If you don't want to deal with sticking the ends down, just make them large enough so the ends overlap slightly. 5 minute fix. :-) Another "pro" worth mentioning is that if your labels' ends slightly overlap, like on a tube of Lip Balm, that paper will be stuck FOREVER. Trust me. After noticing a broken-brain typo on a mini lip balm label I had to remove a couple and they did not go without a fight.

Stay tuned for part two... OnlineLabels.com's Weatherproof paper!