Mission to find an effective lip balm (Part 2) : Hunt for a lip balm that actually moisturisers

I went to Boots today to seek out a lip balm that contains humectants; ingredients that moisturise the lips by drawing moisture into the outer layers of the skin. Previously, I'd discovered that the classic lip balms I've been using do not include ingredients that add moisture, they only contain ingredients that act as a barrier to stop existing moisture evaporating.

A shop assistant saw me studying the lip balms for an age, and suggested that I try the creams in the medicine aisle, alongside the cold sore remedies. I found two products here that looked altogether more serious (and less pretty) than the other lip balms. They both claimed they were suitable for cracked lips as well as cold sores.

1. Blistex Relief Cream

Active Ingredients: Aromatic Ammonia Solution 6.04%, Ammonia Solution 0.10%, Liquified Phenol 0.494%

Other Ingredients: White Paraffin, Modified Lanolin, Sorbitan Palmitate, Polysorbate 40, Peppermint, Sodium Saccharin, Ethanol, Camphor, Cineoli, Purified Water

Ammonia and phenol are antiseptic and mild anaesthetic so may help cracked lips feel better, but they won't help moisturise them. White paraffin and lanolin are both occlusives, helping create a barrier to prevent moisture loss. The remaining ingredients are emulsifiers, fragrances and alcohols, but not humectants.

Conclusion: this cream may soothe sore lips more than typical lip balms, but it doesn't seem to contain any moisturising ingredients over and above the barrier-creating occlusives found in typical lip balms. The search must go on!

2.Boots Lip and Cold Sore Relief Cream

Active Ingredients: Cetrimide 0.5%, Chlorocresol 0.1%, Dimethicone 9%, Urea 1%

Other Ingredients: Deonised Water, Liquid Paraffin, Cetostearyl Alcohol

This cream is more promising. It contains urea, which as well as being a humectant, also helps break down the bond in the outer layer of skin, quickening the shedding of flaking skin. Don't panic! Urea is contained in urine, but this will not be the source of the urea in cosmetics! According to wikipedia it is also a flavour enhancer in cigarettes! It's not clear what concentration of urea is required to be effective though, and this cream only contains 1%. Dimethicone and paraffin are both occlusives so should help to lock in the extra moisture provided by the urea. Chlorocresol is an antiseptic but can trigger an allergic reaction in some people.

Conclusion: This is the first lip balm I've found that contains a humectant as well as occlusives. I'll be buying this one and surreptitiously applying it from the tube that screams the word 'cold sores'!

Salicylic acid: Is this an ingredient I want in my lip balm?

Reading up on lip balm ingredients on the internet, I found a number of articles telling me that I absolutely shouldn’t buy a lip balm containing salicylic acid. Confusingly, other articles told me that this is a good ingredient for removing flaking skin more rapidly. So what’s the story?

Salicylic acid is a common ingredient in acne treatments as it has a peeling effect: it works as a keratolytic to accelerate the shedding of the skin’s outer layer. This also explains why it’s a common wart treatment. It’s highly penetrative as it is soluble in lipids, which might help absorption of other ingredients. It also may ease the pain associated with cracked lips, as it is a mild analgesic (pain-killer). Indeed, the body converts aspirin to salicylic acid.

BUT

Dryness and peeling are commonly listed side-effects of acne treatments containing salicylic acid. Is more peeling what my already lips need? Typically, the flaking I get is so severe it’s possible to cut off the crusty skin with nail scissors anyway.

Furthermore, I’m not sure whether the concentration of salicylic acid in lip balms would be sufficient for it to demonstrate its peeling qualities. Standard bazuka gel contains 12% salicylic acid, whilst extra-strength contains 26%. However, over the counter cosmetics may only contain 2% salicylic acid. The Clearasil website recommends that acne sufferers with dry skin should ‘look for 0.5% or 1% Salicylic Acid instead of 2%’. This implies that salicylic acid may not be great for dry lips.

The bottom line: It’s really not clear, but I’m going to try to find a lip balm that won’t contain salicylic acid and possibly promote further flaking. 

Mission to find an effective lip balm (Part 1): How do lip balms work?

My lips get very dry and flaky in wintry weather and aeroplanes. I religiously apply lip balm when they get like this, but often I feel like it makes little difference and they continue to be chapped and peeling. I’ve sometimes felt like applying a balm actually makes them worse. I’ve been doing some research to try and find out whether that could be true and to find a lip balm that is effective.

It seems that lip balms can work in two main ways: to prevent existing moisture from escaping and to actually add more moisture. It looks like there might be other ways they can help, like masking the appearance of flaking skin cells and helping skin cells be shed more quickly, but I’ll focus on these another time.

The majority ingredient in most lip balms will be an ingredient like petrolatum/mineral oil (that’s vaseline), lanolin or beeswax ( an unreliable source on wikipedia says that the first lip balms might have been ear wax!). These are ‘occlusive’ ingredients which act like a barrier to prevent moisture evaporating from the lips.

Lip balms might also do some moisturising themselves, by including ingredients that help the outer skin in the lips draw in more moisture from the body. Examples of ingredients that do this include amino acids, lactic acids, alpha hydroxy acids, propylene glycol, glycerine and urea. One of the articles I read, suggested that humectants on their own might increase drying, as they bring moisture to the outer layer of the lips more quickly where it would be evaporated, unless combined with a occlusive ingredient.

I’ve checked out the ingredient lists of some of the lip balms I’ve tried in the past to see how they compare, and whether they contain both humectants and occlusives. (I’ve written the ingredients lists in full so if you think I’ve missed an ingredient that is a humectants or occlusive please do let me know.)

	Carmex	Vaseline	Chapstick (original)	Chapstick (moisturising)
Occlusives	Petrolatum, lanolin	Petrolatum	White petrolatum, lanolin	White petrolatum, lanolin
Humectants	None	None	None	None
Ingredients	Petrolatum, Lanolin, cetyl esters, theobroma cocao seed butter, cera alba, paraffin, camphor, menthol, salicylic acid, aroma, vanilla	Petrolatum	White petrolatum, Padimate (sunscreen), arachidyl propionate, camphor, carnauba wax, cetyl alcohol, D&C red no. 6 barium lake, FD&C yellow no. 5 aluminum lake, fragrance, isopropyl lanolate, isopropyl myristate, lanolin, light mineral oil, methylparaben, octyldodecanol, oleyl alcohol, paraffin, phenyl trimethicone, propylparaben, titanium dioxide, white wax	White petrolatum, octinoxate, oxybenzone (both sunscreens), aloe barbadensis leaf extract, carnauba wax, cetyl alcohol, fragrance, isocetyl stearate, isopropyl lanolate, isopropyl myristate, lanolin, methylparaben, mineral oil, paraffin, propylparaben, tocopheryl linoleate/oleate, vitamin E, white wax

Conclusion – The popular lip balms I’ve tried contain no humectants! I am going to search for a lip balm that contains both the occlusives that these lip balms contain, but also some humectants to simultaneously restore the moisture, in the hope that these balms will be more effective. I'll write an article soon on how my hunt goes.

Whilst researching lip balms, I’ve also found articles suggesting that menthol, camphor and salicylic acid are controversial ingredients. Each of these ingredients is contained in at least one of the lip balms above. I’ll write an article soon trying to get to the bottom of whether these ingredients are friend or foe.