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Cooling Water Jelly Tint vs. Lip + Cheek: What's the Difference?

Pick your stick.

With Cooling Water Jelly Tint joining our fan-favorite lineup of multi-use makeup sticks, you might be wondering how it matches up to Milk Makeup’s best-selling Lip + Cheek.

At first glance, the 2-in-1 products have a lot in common. Both Lip + Cheek and Cooling Water Jelly Tint are super easy to apply onto lips and cheeks without any caking, dragging, or harsh lines. Their pigments are both buildable and blendable. The versatile sticks are also similarly spiked with skin-loving ingredients to help improve your complexion every time you swipe them on. They’re clean, vegan, cruelty-free, paraben-free, and non-comedogenic. You may have also noticed they ring up at the same price and pack the same amount of product in their tubes—1,000+ swipes.

However, the resemblances between Lip + Cheek and Cooling Water Jelly Tint just about stop there. Read on to find out what make Jelly Tint and Lip + Cheek stand apart from each other and why each of them deserves a spot in your makeup routine. 

What is Cooling Water Jelly Tint?

Milk Makeup Cooling Water Jelly Tint is a long-lasting blush and lip stain with a fun, bouncy consistency that creates a sheer, juicy wash of color. It also imparts a refreshing, soothing feel as you glide it onto your skin, thanks to hydrating seawater and aloe. They are also joined by vegan collagen to give Jelly Tint added skin-firming benefits.

Like the OG Cooling Water, its pigmented sister can be stored in the fridge when not in use for a more invigorating makeup application experience and added depuffing benefits. Anytime you use something cold on the skin, it helps constrict blood vessels and reduce swelling,” says Milk Makeup Director of Artistry Sara Wren.

What is Lip + Cheek?

Lip + Cheek, on the other hand, delivers color that’s neither too bold nor too sheer, Sara says. The creamy formula features nourishing ingredients, like mango butter, avocado oil, and apricot oil, to moisturize skin and help the formula blend seamlessly. 

What's the difference between Cooling Water Jelly Tint and Lip + Cheek?

Lip + Cheek and Cooling Water Jelly Tint are like oil and water, literally. The former is oil-based, while the latter is water-based. Lip + Cheek’s botanical oils (namely avocado and apricot) give it a dreamy creamy texture, intensely moisturizing benefits, and a glowy finish. Cooling Water Jelly Tint’s waters, particularly aloe and seawater, are key to its bouncy gel texture, burst of hydration, and sheer, watercolor-like finish.

The water-based formula also gives Jelly Tint its cooling sensation, as well as a long-lasting stain that doesn’t budge all day. Compare that to the velvety veil of color Lip + Cheek imparts. Jelly Tint also has skin-firming effects thanks to the addition of vegan collagen, which Lip + Cheek doesn’t have.

Another major difference is their shade selections and finishes. Lip + Cheek is available in 11 different neutral and bold shades; a handful of them are flecked with shimmer. Cooling Water Jelly Tint, on the other hand, only has 4 color options to choose from, but all are playfully bright and buildable and achieve a shimmer-free, popsicle-like stain. 

Side-by-side comparison of Milk Makeup's Cooling Water Jelly Tint and Lip + Cheek on a white background

Can you use Cooling Water Jelly Tint and Lip + Cheek together?

Of course! You can use one on your lips and one on your cheeks for a multi-textured makeup look. You can also layer the formulas. Try swiping Cooling Water Jelly Tint all over your lips and dabbing a similar hue of Lip + Cheek only on the center for a luscious K-beauty-inspired gradient lip look. You can stack them onto your cheeks in a similar way for anaura blushmoment, too. 

How to apply Lip + Cheek

You can layer its creamy color straight from the tube onto your lips and cheeks before blending it out with your fingers or a fluffy brush. “For a softer look, I like to warm the product up with my middle or ring finger then push into the lips,” Wren shares. “This gives a pouty soft-focus blurred lip effect I love.” For blush placement suggestions, check outthis guide.

Cooling Water Jelly Tint can also be slicked straight from the stick onto your skin. A major difference from Lip + Cheek is you need to act fast with this formula. It dries down in seconds, so swipe and blend onto one cheek at a time with a brush, sponge, or fingertips for best results.

You can also sweep a brush over the stick before swirling the color onto your cheeks for a more diffused hint of color. But if you want a more intense splash of sheer popsicle pigment, swipe on multiple layers of Cooling Water Jelly Tint. 

Model holds a stick of Milk Makeup Cooling Water Jelly Tint against their cheek on a white background
 

Meet the Expert:

Sara Wren (she/her) is the Director of Artistry at Milk Makeup. In her role, she does all the makeup artistry and direction for our Milk Makeup global campaigns, educates the staff and field team on application methods, stars in the brand’s social media videos, and travels to different markets spreading Milk Makeup’s good vibes. When she’s not on set, Sara loves experimenting with DIY hair colors, eating tacos, watching basketball, and scouring for vintage cosmetics to add to her impressive collection.

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Devon Abelman (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who focuses on the intersections and intricacies of beauty, culture, astrology, and mental health. She is passionate about shining light on under-the-radar BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ beauty creators as well as Korea’s impact on global beauty trends. In her spare time, Devon can be found dressing up Scorpion, her XXXL blind-and-deaf rescue dog.

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Devon Abelman (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who focuses on the intersections and intricacies of beauty, culture, astrology, and mental health. She is passionate about shining light on under-the-radar BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ beauty creators as well as Korea’s impact on global beauty trends. In her spare time, Devon can be found dressing up Scorpion, her XXXL blind-and-deaf rescue dog.

All information is created for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.