INTRODUCING: Gloss Tournament

The ultimate lip balm ranking system is BACK, baby.

Apologies for the late-night communiqué, but consider this a bedtime story.

ONCE UPON A TIME — September of 2023 — I got sick of trying to find a lip balm that actually works. Frankly, I don’t trust the bulk of lip balm reviews; so much is either spon-con or simply too vague. I took it upon myself to rank all the lip balms on the market until I found the Golden Gloss: the one lip balm that meets the Six Tenets: 𝔉𝔬𝔯𝔪𝔲𝔩𝔞, 𝔉𝔢𝔢𝔩, ℌ𝔶𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫, 𝔏𝔬𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔳𝔦𝔱𝔶, 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔢, and 𝔙𝔦𝔟𝔢𝔰.

And then I forgot about it.

Gloss Tournament blew up way bigger than expected, and I made the grim mistake of creating a complicated (though beautiful) Google Sheet that I could barely navigate, much less add to. Forgetting about it wasn’t all willful, though; life just got in the way. I kept wondering what it would be like to recreate Gloss Tournament on a responsive and filterable platform.

Now, I can officially announce that Gloss Tournament is BACK, on Tumblr of all fucking places. I haven’t touched Tumblr since I was a teenager, but I wanted a place to host the rankings that could actually be serviceable.

You can search by rating (the full system is explained here), type, price, and, of course, flavor profile.

Gloss Tournament combines my two favorite things — loving lip balm and, too, being a hater. The Rhode Peptide Lip Treatment still hasn’t won me over, and despite my intrigue in those David Cronenberg-esque phone cases, I’d rather buff my lips with sandpaper than try a Rhode lip product ever again. Sorry!

I plan on adding and updating GT quarterly (see how Balm Dotcom rose in the rankings now that Glossier was bullied into re-releasing the original formula?). If you have any lip balm recs, or want me to review something that isn’t listed in the index, feel free to drop me a line — you know where to find me. 🗡

See you for OFF-MENU on Friday. ꩜ And if you need a medieval lullaby…