Blistex is the best; Carmex is acceptable if Blistex is not available. I just don’t care for the way it smells.
Waxy balms don’t seem to permeate my lips. I do use the waxy chapstick tubes for protection from the elements during the day, but at night I use Vaseline or Neutrogena lip moisturizer.
Petroleum Jelly
That’s a good point; I use five different types of moisturizers or I scratch my skin off, I get so dry and itchy, and my husband uses none. I sweat very little, and he sweats a lot; I’m not sure how that affects dry skin, but it does seem to.
I like the vaseline because it has no medicinal stuff in it; anything with any medicine in it makes my lips burn.
My little jar of the rose stuff arrived today (wow, Amazon Prime) - it does seem to help, but it’s pretty goopy, and, you know, all over your hands. (Of course, my cuticles could use some work too.) I’ve ordered most of what people suggested and intend to try it all. This stuff also smells like my grandma, which isn’t a bad thing, but it does.
blistex silk and shine. works nicely on chapped noses as well.
vaseline is great when the wind chill really gets going.
I am allergic to something in Natural Ice - it actually makes my lips peel more. But I am reading lots of stuff here I haven’t tried before.
My thanks to the OP for beginning this thread. My lips are always dry and every winter they do the painful splitting thing no matter if I use Vaseline, Carmex, Blistex, Burts Bees or Chapstick. Jojoba oil under Vaseline helps until I wipe it or chew it all off in my sleep. Bag balm seems worth a try.
The rosebud salve is actually making a difference - my first glass of wine tonight stung like a bastard, and now it doesn’t hurt at all! (Er, I haven’t had quite so many glasses that a drunken stupor would explain it.) If nothing else, it’s sealing my poor abused lips off from the tasty, tasty alcohol.
You know, I never thought about this in relation to lips, but it might make sense. I have very oily skin and I’ve never used any lip gunk. it’s not like I’ve never gotten badly chapped lips, but I don’t get them often and can ignore it when I do.
I always figured you lip balm people were just a bunch of pansies, but maybe I was being unfair :D.
I hate the smell of both Carmex and Burt’s Bees. I like Aquaphor - it’s one of the few balms that doesn’t dry out your lips even further, and there’s no smell. You can find small tubes of it in the lotion or first aid aisles of any drugstore.
Y’know, is this regional? Because I’ve heard many sing the praises of Aquaphor, but I’ve never friggin’ found it. Ever. I see it’s by Eucerin, and I see Eucerin regularly, but never Aquaphor-by-Eucerin.
Not sure if it’s regional. I’m in WI and I buy small tubes of it in the lotion section of my local CVS. Works great on any dry skin, not just lips.
When the big-box retail chain for which I work deleted Natural Ice from its modular, we were really surprised. It was one of our top-selling lip balms (behind the Carmex brands, but ahead of Blistex and Chapstick), and we still lament its absence in our product selection, several years past its deletion. We could expect a sellthrough of a full case per week, when other brands might be lucky to sell a case per month. When the deletion came down, we forced a huge order through the system to force our warehouse to send all of its Natural Ice stock to our store, and it sold like gangbusters over the next few months. It’s got to be one of the stupidest product deletions that we’ve had to deal with; if it’s hard to find in multiple locations, I’m thinking that the deletion was caused by the manufacturer, which IIRC is the Mentholatum Company. Glad to hear it’s still in production.
For those searching for hard-to-find lip balms, you’ll often need to check multiple sections of a store to find a full selection, and if you ask most store employees, they often won’t know that, say, Blistex DCL is only at checkouts, while Aquaphor is divided between pharmacy and cosmetics. The usual locations for lip balms; pharmacy in the cough/cold area (major brands and cold sore remedies); cosmetics (moisturizing brands, Bonne Bell flavors); health/beauty (moisturizing brands, sample sizes); checkouts (popular brands). Unless you get a knowledgeable employee, it’s often easier to order online.