This is a comment on a fairly old column, but I’m new to this site, and I couldn’t resist adding my thoughts. Admittedly, this is only a theory (though it’s strongly based on factual evidence); I have not conducted any research to verify it. Here goes:
The vast majority of chapsticks and chapstick-like substances (including Carmex) contain ingredients such as menthol, camphor, eucalyptus, or peppermint oil. (As an experiment, next time you’re at the drugstore, see how many lip balms you have to pick up before you can find one without any of those ingredients.) Those ingredients are included because they leave you with a cool, refreshed feeling; the product actually seems to be DOING something. It is doing something; it is irritating your lips. Since the skin on your lips is irritated, your lips will remain chapped, and as soon as the emollients (read: gooey stuff) are gone from your lips, they will feel bad. The normal reaction to this situation is to apply more lip balm, which dries out your lips, which causes you to apply–okay, I think you can see where I’m going with this. The whole vicious cycle is what leads people to believe that they are addicted to whatever lip balm they are using.
The solution to this little quandary, by the way, is to find a lip balm without any irritating ingredients that contains good emolients like lanolin, shea or cocoa butter and apply it regularly.
It’s just a theory, but it’s my theory, and I like it.
Rather than using stuff that’s known to set up a viscious cycle of re-drying your lips, try something like Badger Healing Balm. It’s made of good stuff like olive oil, beeswax and aloe.
The slogan on the can is “This stuff works” and I believe them as it’s what I use.
Actually, the irritants are included as “counter-irritants”… mainly to relieve pain from the cracking associated with dried lips. A similar concept is using something like Icy Hot for muscle pains.
Plain old petroleum jelly works best for me, and I note that my dentist also favors it when prepping for extended sessions of groping and poking about in my oral cavity, bashing the lips repeatedly in the process.
What is a “counter-irritant?” Do you irritate the irritant? Okay, I’m being a bit facetious here. Yes, that’s the thing: those things make your lips FEEL better, but they make the chapping worse–yet another reason why “if it feels good, do it” is not really the best way to go about life.
Anyway, there’s this stuff called Lip Apeel (recommended by Paula Begoun, the one-woman version of a cosmetics Consumer Reports) that’s supposed to be good. I’m going to buy it as soon as I can convince myself to spend $20 on lip balm. :o) Otherwise, as gotpasswords said, you’ve just gotta get something with good ingredients and USE it. BTW, I will see if I can find Badger Healing Balm. Thanks for the tip.
Well, I suppose it could be used for poking about in other cavities as well, but he would have to give me a serious dose of nitrous before I’d fail to notice that!
The one drawback to pj, of course, is that it’s pretty difficult to carry around in your pocket like chapstick. For a portable alternative, I prefer Vasoline lip balm, which I think is pretty much just pj with some kind of thinning agent. Lord knows it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than the $20 for that stuff skeptic_ev is considering, and it works reasonably well.
Just checking in to say that I drove all the way into the city centre yesterday to go to the one store in Dublin that I know sells Carmex. My household ran out last week, and my wife and I had started getting antsy. Plus, my lips were all chapped. I applied some just before I came upon this thread.
Seems to me that the chapping is made worse by licking your lips often. It makes sense to me, then, if you apply something nasty there that you wouldn’t want to lick that could solve the problem.
Yes, you would think so. I have some nasty chapstick, though, and it doesn’t seem to help much, as the taste migrates into my mouth whether I lick my lips or not. All that makes me want to do is not use that particular chapstick.
