The Difference Between a Lip Oil and a Lip Gloss

What Is a Lip Oil?

Once considered a niche item, lip oil has cemented its place as a top-shelf beauty staple. As the name suggests, lip oils are packed with oils designed specifically for your lips. They can offer real skincare benefits, including hydration, nourishment, and conditioning, and may be clear or tinted with a sheer finish. Lip oils are lighter in consistency than lip glosses, providing a natural, shiny finish—not quite as reflective as gloss, but shinier than lipstick or balm.

Unlike traditional lip glosses that sit on the surface of your lips, lip oils are designed to penetrate deeper, delivering nourishment where it’s needed most. They offer a high-shine finish without any of the stickiness or tackiness. Lip oils can be worn alone or layered over lipstick to protect lips from drying or cracking while adding a luminous sheen.

What Is a Lip Gloss?

While there is some overlap, lip glosses typically have a thicker, richer, and often stickier texture, formulated with waxes or petroleum jelly to create an emollient base. Primarily a makeup product, lip gloss is designed to give lips a glamorous, glass-like finish. It delivers a reflective, high-shine effect but usually doesn’t hydrate or nourish. Like lip oils, glosses come in both clear and colorful varieties, though they offer more intense color payoff thanks to a higher pigment concentration.

The Best Clean Lip Oil 

Our Hyaluronic Lip Oil Booster is a juicy, non-sticky lip oil that delivers the high-shine of a gloss with the nourishment of a balm, for a softer, plumper-looking pout. A combination of hyaluronic acid and sea fern (nutrient-rich seaweed) helps promote visibly plumper, fuller-looking lips, while castor oil and meadowfoam oil nourish and condition.

Rich yet lusciously lightweight in texture, our lip oil features a deliciously sweet mango-mandarin scent that delights the senses. The ultra-plush doe-foot applicator hugs lips, delivering the perfect amount of shine for a soft, supple look. The clear, glossy sheen is gorgeous alone and layers beautifully over lipstick or tints.

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Sea Results™ After Just One Swipe

Clinical Results, after 1 use*:

• 100% showed improvement in lip volume
• 91% showed improvement in lip plumping

Consumer Results, after 1 use**:

• 100% agreed lips have a luminous shine
• 100% agreed lips felt soft
• 94% agreed they would use this instead of lip filler

*Based on an independent third-party clinical study of 32 women.
**Based on an independent third-party consumer perception study of 34 women.

With clean ingredients, a chic glass tube, and high-shine finish, we’re guessing you’ll want one of these in every purse and pocket.