Product dependency: lip balm

There are certain products and services that advertise a solution, but in reality only create a new type of problem...dependency. Chapstick, or lip balm, may be chief among them. They are purchased with the promise of relief from your dry and painful lips, but do they deliver on their promise? In a way, yes. Common lip balm ingredients, like menthol and salicylic acid (aspirin), momentarily ease the pain, but can worsen the original problem, creating a dependency. Lip balms can interfere with the signalling between damaged cells and the mechanisms that produce new cells. This interference slows down your ability to replenish your cells and heal, which makes you want to sooth your lips with more balm. So how can you break the addiction?

First of all, you’re likely not addicted. As far as I know, chapstick companies don’t add any known addictive chemicals to their products, but you can become addicted to rituals and activities due to your brain’s ability to make its own addictive chemicals. That being said, you can go cold turkey. Tough it out for a few days, till your lips heal on their own, which they will. You can improve your natural ability to heal chapped lips by making sure you’re hydrated and that you get enough healthy fats in your diet. Or you can get lip balms that don’t create dependency. Look for products that contain occlusion agents like beeswax and ceramides as well as naturally moisturizing ingredients like cocoa butter and coconut oil. Avoid ingredients like artificial colors and fragrances, menthol, camphor, phenol, alcohol, and salicylic acid. 

In summation, your body already has natural solutions to natural problems. It’s mostly our job to not get in its way. Remember that lip balm companies make money off chapped lips, not healthy lips. Be an informed consumer and you can maintain your beautiful ability to self regulate.