If you haven't caught the excitement of all natural products yet, you might be wondering what's the big deal with ChapStick or other name brand lip balms. Well, this is as good a place to start your green skin care journey as any.
Most lip balms contain petroleum based ingredients such as mineral oil, fragrance (a place to hide chemical-laden ingredients and preservatives), paraffin, and parabens. Look up the ingredients before you buy a lip balm. Some contain lip drying ingredients like isopropyl myristate.
Why avoid mineral oil? The two most important reasons for me are: 1. It is petroleum based, not natural. and 2. It doesn't add anything beneficial to your skin like unrefined, organic plant oils can. There is another reason as well. In the natural world, we love unrefined oils. That means they have been processed very little. But in the petroleum industry, mineral oil needs to be highly refined. If not, studies show that it contains toxins that are human carcinogens. Paraffin is one of the names of highly refined mineral oil.
Know that when a product says fragrance, it doesn't mean anything natural. Anyone who goes to the expense of using natural fragrances is going to tell you what they are. Manufacturers are not forced to tell the ingredients used in fragrance due to "trade secrets." This is the number one place to hide ingredients such as preservatives, chemicals, and toxins. Ahh the sweet smell of petro-chemicals!
Parabens are preservatives that have lost favor in recent years. The jury is out on these preservatives as they have been successfully used to preserve products since the 1920s. There is some weak evidence that they may mimic estrogen. Because of this, we do not use parabens here at Pharmacist Made, but are also not 100% against them. Furthermore, no preservative is needed in our lip balm as all the ingredients are oil based.
Why put petroleum on your lips when there is an alternative? Look for lip balms that have a combination of natural oils, butter, and waxes to moisturize and seal in that moisture.
My lip balm contains only 7 ingredients:
- Organic pomegranate seed oil
- Organic castor oil
- Organic cocoa butter
- Organic almond oil
- Candelilla wax
- Organic beeswax
- An essential oil
You can find it in my store here. Your lips will definitely thank you.
