I’ve been using Aquaphor Healing Ointment, and I like it much better than lip balm. I put it on before bed, and maybe twice during the day, and it’s all I need. If you work outside, of course use SPF, but if not I definitely recommend the Aquaphor. It’s about $6 for a huge tube that will last for months.
The people who have this sort of addiction are suffering from a form of dehydration caused by a chemical dependency. While I’m not about to extol the myths about lip balm causing cancer or slowly eroding your lips (although phenol has been proven to cause a whole slew of health conditions in larger doses, and happens to be an ingredient in Carmex), it is a fact that the active ingredients in lip balms are designed to slow the evaporation of moisture from the skin. This product is perfect during the winter or summer when temperatures are at extremes, but it isn’t addictive so much because of a chemical addiction but because the lips begin to rely on the anti-evaporating properties of the balm and tend to dry out even more quickly when they go without it after regularly relying on it if it is used too often. You may not necessarily be dehydrated after trying to kick the habit despite the fact that your lips become dry, which explains why there’s a tendency to regress back to abusing the product again.
It’s just as easy to develop a dependency/addiction to nose spray, cough medicine, or caffeine because they are all create dependencies for the body that could be alleviated through proper diet (more fruits and veggies) and hydration (more water). I tell people with dry skin/lips/eyes/hair that they wouldn’t need special lotions for their hands or balms for their lips if they’d adjust their intake of water, fruit, and vegetables, and I get looked at as if I’m a nutter for suggesting that nature has the answer to solving these ailments. I find it even more troubling that women are the ones who suffer from the abuses of these products the most, despite the scientific fact that they require less potable water for hydration and normal bodily function than men do. In case none of this serves as any incentive, there’s also the fact that proper hydration helps to inhibit the onset of halitosis.
I figure if it’s good enough for the rest of the animals on the planet that don’t have access to lip balm, then it’s good enough for me … but I suppose not everyone will agree with me.
While I agree that proper hydration can relieve dry lips, when it comes to dry skin, drinking more water will not help, AFAIK. I am not a dermatologist, but I do work for them, and I’ve heard them tell patients that the drinking water/less dry skin thing is a myth many times.
I tried, but I just couldn’t do it when my lips inevitably got chapped.
And unfortunately, none of the corner stores around my area sells my favorite brand, so when I buy my Natural Ice, I have to buy in bulk. That reminds me, I’m down to the last two or three tubes. Time to buy another ten tubes -_-
After years and years of living in sunny, arid Colorado, I definitely developed a chapstick ‘habit’ but really only used it at night–maybe once in the daytime.
My hands and chest really suffered in the winter, and I always used Eucerin on them.
Then I moved to Florida, and it has been interesting to see the changes.
Hands and chest no longer suffer cracks and eczema. The Eucerin gets used, but not nearly so fanatically.
But I still use the chapstick.
Still feel the need.
I wonder if it is from addiction, or all that salt spray on the beach, or the sun, or what–I dunno.
Maybe I’m just old and my skin cannot replenish itself as it used to.
Or a combination of all those factors.
I’m not addicted generally to chapsticks, but there are occasions when I use them: start of the winter and in the mountains; also, in summer, on water and in the mountains a special sun-protection stick. (Winter and mountains are also when I need hand-lotion).
But I’ve heard from a cosmetician working for an anthroposophic natural cosmetics company that almost all conventional chapsticks are based on petroleum products (glycerine), which are a bit unnatural for the body. They seal the lips too much, but the downside is that the body gets the signal “There is enough fat on the lips”, so it stops producing it own lipids/fats, so your lips are even drier, you put more chapstick on, etc.
The alternative is using natural cosmetics, which uses Beeswax or Lanolin (wool-fat), which seals the lips less completly, and concentrate on not using it every 5 min. The chap stick should be used temporarily, not permanently, in other words, before your body starts depending on being provided with additional, foreign fats. (Same as your body not getting used to other supports).
I do know from experience that, once I’m exposed to dry mountain air/ cold winter air /etc for more than a few days, I need much less lotion - apparently my body does adapt.
BTW, this reasoning is also why the anthroposophists recommend putting a little dab of oil on your face if you have trouble with too oily skin - you try to signal to your body “produce less oil, there’s too much”.
I’m not hooked on it, but I keep a tube on my night stand, and apply it most nights at bedtime. In the winter, I keep a tube in my coat pocket, and apply it as I’m taking my daughter to the bus stop in the morning, so the extreme cold and wind of western Maryland don’t take their toll on my lips. But at most, I use it twice a day, much more commonly, four to five times a week.
I have honestly never bought a single stick of the stuff. I actually can’t stand to use it. I pretty much never have chapped lips.
When I have tried to use it the stuff just bugs the hell out of me. As soon as I apply it I have the urge to wipe it off. Like “ugh, there’s some stuff on my lips. Is it food? Saliva? Yuck, gotta wipe it off.”
Don’t ever start.
Geez, I use Chapstick… maybe, on average, once or twice a week, tops. They’re not cigarettes.
I used it for a few months since my lips were getting chapped in the winter, but now that it’s sunny, I don’t need it.
The idea of “chapstick addiction” strikes me as weird.
The Master has spoken. As for me, you can have my lip goo and hand lotion when your pry them from my cold, dead hands. I live in a humid climate but lots of time indoors plus nasty medicine equals uber dry lips and hands as one lovely side effect.
Like others, this kind of surprises me. I’ll use it at night if I have a cold and my nose is stuffed up and I’m breathing through my mouth. But that’s about it.
I live in a VERY high cold and dry climate. Never had any problems.
Hand cream? Occasionaly when I’ve been working on the house. Lumber sucks the moisture right and oils out of your hands.