The humble lip balm is a handbag essential year-round, but especially in winter when the cold, dry air can leave lips feeling chapped and sore.
Lip balms, whether petrolatum-based or natural, help ease the pain of raw lips and protect your most delicate skin from the elements.
Keeping a lip balm with you on the go is all well and good, but severely chapped and painful lips require something stronger. Burt’s Bees – one of our go-to brands for natural skincare – has a powerful moisturiser in its extensive range that you slather on overnight, giving the natural oils more time to sink in, hydrate your lips and strengthen the fragile tissue that shields them from the elements during the day. It comes in a little screw-top pot, tastes slightly minty and has a thick, buttery texture that fully coats without feeling slimy or sticky.
Dermatologist Dr Stefanie Williams from Eudelo Dermatology & Skin recommends buying a simple lip balm without many plant ingredients, as these can be highly allergenic. Her favourite is this squeezy balm from French brand La Roche-Posay, whose products are made with antioxidant thermal spring water and specially designed for sensitive skin. It works by creating a protective film on your lips, keeping them comfortable in even the harshest of conditions, yet also penetrates more deeply, filling in cracks and repairing damage. The texture is thick yet feels light on your lips and proved especially effective when applied before going to sleep.
US beauty brand eos certainly wins on the “lip balms you want to eat” front – the new dulce de leche flavour smells and tastes as divine as the real thing. Packaging-wise, the slick and modern sphere design eliminates the problem of sticky hands by coating lips in soft, certified organic salve with one quick application. Its beeswax base is softened by sunflower seed, castor seed and coconut oil, with extra moisturisation courtesy of shea and cocoa butters. It’s small but easy to find in your bag thanks to its unique shape and recyclable burnt orange shell. Gluten-free, hypoallergenic and not tested on animals, this balm ticks a lot of boxes and gets the thumbs up from celebrity skin therapist Louise Thomas-Minns. It’s fun to use and best of all, it’s a bargain at under a fiver.
Cult US brand Glossier has a huge following of young beauty fans but happily, its Instagram-friendly products aren’t all style over substance. This multi-purpose balm’s heavy duty base of petrolatum, beeswax, lanolin and castor seed oil creates a film that locks in moisture and stays in place thanks to its thick, waxy texture. There’s an eight-strong range of flavours and finishes to choose from, including the glittery “birthday” balm, but if your lips are sensitive or you want to play safe, dermatologists always recommend sticking to the product with the simplest ingredients list. In this case, that’s the fragrance-free, untinted “original”. Far from boring, it comes in a cute baby pink tube and makes the ideal base for your favourite lippy. It’s colourless, goes on matte and doesn’t leave a sticky residue, so you can use it as a skin salve on other dry patches too. The downside is you’re paying extra for a trendy brand.
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