Lib Balm or Harm

Courtesy of The Honest Company

Regardless of the time, place, or season lip balm is my go-to product. I carry lip balm with me everywhere and you're more likely to find me out and about with lip balm than with my wallet. With an extensive selection of lip products on the market you can buy and try different brands, flavors, and formulas. Over many years I have tried several lip balm brands including: Eos, ChapStick, Blistex, Nivea, Burt's Bees, SoftLips, etc. I jumped around between brands for personal reasons and because I constantly wanted to try out new products. *Updated 7/15* Before I learned about the Think Dirty app I was hooked on Nivea's lip balm. "A Kiss of Smoothness", "A Kiss of Mint and Minerals", and "A Kiss of Milk and Honey" which were constantly rotating between my purse, pocket, and dresser. Since learning about the harmful effects of synthetic fragrances I have since switched to the Honest Company's Organic Lip Balm Trio. Sold together, the lavender mint, sweet orange vanilla, and plain & simple are healthy must haves! Free of synthetic ingredients and flavors the Honest Company's lip balm glides on smoothly and has a silky finish that is never heavy or sticky. Organic jojoba, olive, sunflower, and coconut oils deeply hydrate and protect lips from moisture loss while rejuvenating shea butter and aloe leaf extract moisturize and condition skin, helping to soothe dry, chapped lips. The unique blend of organic oils sink into the skin to moisturize from within, rather than sealing it off from moisture like traditional petrolatum-based lip balms and chock full of essential fatty acids from Tahitian Tamanu oil everyone will heave healthy, happy lips!

ChapStick brand lip balm is probably the most popular lip care product because it is wallet-friendly and one of the original lip balms. My grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts are all ChapStick users. I'll admit that I've finished one or two ChapStick tubes as well but once I became aware of the ingredients I promptly switched out all the ChapStick tubes I could find in my house and moved my family and I to a cleaner brand. Although Chapstick is a reliable, helpful product I simply cannot stomach the thought of applying all those chemicals to my lips. (Hello people you eat whatever sits on your lips!) The main ingredient of ChapStick is petrolatum (a whopping 45%). ChapStick also contains: mineral oil, methylparaben, propylparaben, and camphor. I had never come across a product containing camphor and was shocked to find it in ChapStick. According to the world wide web camphor comes from the camphor laurel trees in Asia and can be used for cooking (mostly in India), medicinal purposes, and as an embalming fluid (ew!). Camphor in large doses is poisonous and in small doses raises potential health concerns. Also, camphor is commonly found in "moth balls". Moth Balls have an intensely pungent order; therefore, if you've ever smelled moth balls, like I have, then you surely will NOT want camphor to touch your lips. 

I first heard of Eos lip balm in high school when girls started carrying colorful, tiny orbs around and gradually everyone began showing up with the newest colors and flavors. Eos products are creatively marketed (who else makes an egg shaped lip balm?!) with their unique shape, compact size, fun colors, wide range of flavors, and recently celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian have used social media and other endeavors to promote Eos lip balm. Also Eos lip balm is 95% organic, 100% natural, paraben & petrolatum free, gluten-free, and made in the USA (which you have to love because almost everything else is imported these days). Having tried the mint flavor I can honestly say that Eos is a great, fun product. Although the egg shape was kind of hard to fit in my pocket I admire Eos' creativity. Sadly, after a few weeks of using Eos I had an allergic reaction to the formula thus I had to discontinue my usage. I have contemplated giving Eos a second try but I'm still in love with Nivea.

The next time you go to the store to buy lip balm take a moment to read the ingredient label or even search the product on Good Guide ahead of time. It's not my intention to turn anyone away from certain brands, I am simply trying to share with you what I've learned.

Sincerely,
JEN



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