You're on your way outside when you reach for your Chapstick. Or you're walking through the park when dry lips remind you to dab on some lip balm. It's a thoughtless habit, and a silly little thing… but you could be doing your lips more harm than good. What most balm users don't know is that almost every lip balm manufacturer – even those that make medicated lip balms - includes ingredients that not only don't moisturize: they actively dry out your lips, creating more need for their product and even lip balm addiction. Natural lip balms offer safe, worthy alternatives.
Do Lips Crack, Peel or Dry More Quickly with Lip Balm?
Many lip balm users find that their lips peel or start to feel dry as early as a half hour after lip balm use, forcing them to reapply repeatedly throughout the day. Rumors and conspiracy theories about "lip balm addiction" abound across the internet.
Although there appears to be little evidence to support the idea that people really become "addicted" to certain lip balm brands, the grain of truth behind the myth is the ineffectiveness of lip balm and the ease with which it becomes second nature to apply and reapply it throughout the day.
What's in Lip Balm?
Most commercial brands, including the so-called medicated lip balms, have a petroleum base. Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white wax, paraffin wax, and mineral oil are all synonyms for petroleum or petroleum by-products, used to hold moisture against the skin – but these may be toxic.
Add to that aluminum salts, preservatives, artificial flavors and sugar or artificial sweeteners and you've got a potentially dangerous combination of chemicals that natural health experts say should not be used anywhere on the skin, and certainly not near the sensitive mucus membranes of the mouth.
But the real culprits, as far as dry lips go, are additives like menthol, camphor, phenol or alcohols that are used as counter-irritants to give lips a cool, soothing sensation as lip balm is applied.
According to Paula Begoun, author of The Beauty Bible (Beginning Press, 2002), these ingredients are used "to make the consumer think something is happening." But she says, "If you want a cooling sensation, drink some cold water." These lip balm ingredients aren't helping your lips, they are drying them and worsening the chance of lips cracking, peeling or bleeding.
Natural Lip Balm Brands
There are dozens of natural lip balms available as an alternative to the mainstream brands. The trouble is, most of them contain the same ingredients that dry and irritate lips and make users dependent on lip balm.
Some of the better brands available include Unpetroleum, Burt's Bees, and Young Living Essential Oils. But none of these is perfect, and even the best cosmetics can be changed. Consumers would be wise to check the ingredients of lip balm every time before they buy, in case the company has changed their formula and added drying agents or irritants.
Victoria Anisman-Reiner - Victoria Anisman-Reiner is a freelance writer with extensive experience in holistic health care and animal training.
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