Is Your Lip Balm Lying to You?
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Health and Wellness

Is Your Lip Balm Lying to You?

Why your lips are probably getting dry.

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Is Your Lip Balm Lying to You?
Pexels

Lip balm is something I can't live without. I like the way it cures me of my dried lips, the way it smells, and overall how much better I feel when I finally have it on. But I found out that my relief is only temporary, and part of the problem with my chapped lips is in the lip balm itself.

The reason I have this problem is that lip balm has humectant ingredients like hyaluronic acid and glycerin in it that cause chapped lips to become even more chapped. These ingredients pull the moisture right out of lips leaving them dry and itching to be reapplied. It doesn't say THAT that on the label.

You may be asking yourself what a humectant is. Well, a humectant is a substance used to reduce moisture loss. It isn't necessarily bad alone but it is best to look for products that contain both humectants and occlusive substances (such as beeswax, shea butter, and oils) so that they can be offset by each other and work to keep your lip's moisture.

It is genius actually how companies create their lip balm. Having moist lips becomes addicting when you constantly apply lip balm, and as you've read, because of the chemicals, your lips will keep drying out regardless of how much or how many times you reapply it.

The profit companies make then comes from you exhausting the stick too fast and needing to buy more. It becomes a vicious cycle of always having chapped lips and always needing to apply and buy more because secretly they create a fault within their product to ensure that money continues coming in quickly.

You may have heard of soda companies doing this by adding salt to their ingredients list. The salt absorbs the water in your body and creates the need to keep rehydrating. They get away with it because the taste of salt is completely masked by the taste of sugar, not to mention that the body is highly addicted to sugar. You'll end up craving more before you're even done with your first sip.

I like to use petroleum jelly instead for my lips, but I still use lip balm sticks only because I go to college with 5,000 other people and don't want my potentially dirty fingers on my lips. My favorite though might be Carmex's medicated lip balm. Checking the ingredients on it, it contains multiple occlusive substances and doesn't require hand-to-lip contact when applying.

With winter coming we will all need to be prepared for dry cracked lips. Keep an occlusive lip care product in your bag to keep your lip's moist this year. Just remember though not to get too attached to the feeling it gives you because you'll end up like me, constantly reaching for my lip balm and unable to think about anything else until I have moist lips again.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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