Before I can sleep I have to check my bedside table to make sure it’s there. I can’t watch TV or work without putting it on. I’ve applied it every waking hour for 35 years and, frankly, freak out if there’s not one by my side. “Which is ridiculous,” my husband Chris says, shaking his head as I turn the car round to pick up the supply I forgot on the kitchen counter, making us late for our concert. “You don’t need it. Nobody does.”
I’m beginning to wonder if he might be right. Lip balm, which I’ve always considered a beauty essential, especially during unforgiving winter weather, seems to be doing me more harm than good lately. The more I apply, the drier my lips get, leaving me in a near constant cycle of re-application.
Not that I’m alone. According to market research company Grand View Research, 84 per cent of Brits use lip balm at least once a week and 60 per cent of us put it on “throughout the day as needed”. A global market analysis by Industry Research found women account for 72 per cent of lip balm consumption; men 28 per cent.
But why am I so dependent on it, and what would happen if I went for a week without? In a fit of frustrated curiosity, I decide to find out.
Just four hours in, I’m regretting my decision, my lips are so horribly dry. My lower lip has developed a string of tough, little squares, darker than the skin on the rest of my lips. I feel irritable and panicked and am struggling to concentrate. But I’ve been commissioned to write about my experiment, I’ve handed six lip balms scattered around the house to my husband to hide, and it’s too late to back out.
Chris, who hasn’t ever used lip balm, is convinced humans haven’t evolved to need it and that left to their own devices, our lips will remain naturally soft, just like the skin on our face (he doesn’t use moisturiser either.) Annoyingly, his lips look perfectly healthy.
So is he right? Not exactly, says GP and dermatologist Dr Thuva Amuthan, founder of Dr. Derme Skin Clinics, who explains lips can’t regulate their own moisture in the way facial skin can. “They have no sebaceous glands and therefore don’t produce protective oils,” he says, “so lose water more easily, and are more vulnerable to cold, wind and sun. This is why lips dry out faster than the rest of the face.”
While some people appear to “get away” without lip balm, whether because of genetics, their environment or lower exposure to cold, wind or dehydration, for most of us “some form of barrier protection is helpful”, especially in winter, he says.
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However, he stresses, between two and four applications a day should suffice. Over-application of balm, which can disrupt the skin’s delicate barrier, is something he sees a lot, and “balm-dependent” lips like mine will often feel worse for three to five days without it “because the skin barrier has been relying on an external occlusive layer.”
Within a week of going without, he says, my lips should adapt and feel comfortable again. Which feels like a lifetime as I try to sleep, breathing through my nose because I read breathing through your mouth makes your lips drier.
Day two, and I’m downing water on Amuthan’s recommendation as “dehydration shows quickly on lips”, while desperately trying not to lick them because, he adds, “saliva evaporates quickly and worsens dryness.” So too, it feels, does being outside. I normally enjoy a bracing dog walk at lunchtime but all I can think about is the sensation of my now flaky lips being stripped raw by the chill breeze – the oil in my bolognese at dinner is my mouth’s only (desperate) respite.
Perhaps it’s my mind playing tricks on me, but my lips look thinner, as if they are retreating into my face – and I am becoming invisible. Whether because full lips are a sign of youth (shine from balm gives the illusion of it) or because I’ve had my habit since I was 13, I feel old and lost without it.
As a teenager I used Lipsyl, like most Gen Xers, and liberal applications of Body Shop’s kiwi lip balm, before moving onto Carmex as an adult, and back to Lipsyl, with the odd luxury brand I’ve been given as a gift in between.
Expensive balms can actually be the most drying, says Amuthan, especially those with ingredients such as menthol and peppermint, which stimulate nerve endings and increase blood flow, and “can feel pleasant initially but often leads to irritation and rebound dryness. I frequently advise patients with chronically dry lips to avoid these altogether.”
Lipsyl isn’t a great choice either, he says, with “a long list of potential irritants, including fragrance and fragrance allergens, which are a common cause of lip irritation and dryness.”
I currently use Vaseline, which “is actually a very effective option”, he says. “It doesn’t hydrate, but seals in existing moisture and protects the barrier. Simple, boring products used sparingly work far better than heavily fragranced or ‘active’ balms.”
Day three and my lips still feel dry – but aren’t getting drier. I think I’m turning a corner and when I instinctively think of applying lip balm after a fractious work call, I realise the psychological withdrawal is as hard as the physical discomfort, the application as integral to soothing stress as scrolling.
While my husband is askance at my addiction, my friends get it. When I tell other women I’m going without lip balm for a week they look at me in horrified disbelief, as if it’s my kids hidden in a drawer.
“If I forget mine I have to look for someone to borrow from,” says my friend Alice, who I met up with at a book launch on day four. I’m wearing lipstick, which I don’t normally bother with as my lip balm dissolves it, but Alice says it is cheating. I disagree. This is a lip stain and seems to be drawing out any remaining vestiges of moisture from my mouth, like clay. I feel so self-conscious I talk with my hand in front of my mouth and miss reaching for my balm during lulls in conversation to make me feel less awkward. But when I get home my lips look normal – and my lipstick’s still on.
I pay the price for my lip stain on day five, with slightly drier lips, but as I reach the end of the week I’ve successfully brushed off the last of the flaky skin and to my astonishment, I’m going for hours at a time without even thinking about lip balm.
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Not having to pat pockets, search bags, or check my bedside table to make sure I’ve got a trusty tin (or two) on me at all times is profoundly liberating. My lips look and feel hydrated – better, even, without a layer of petroleum jelly smeared indiscriminately over lip and skin.
It’s 6.32pm on day nine before I buckle after a stressful day and ask Chris to hand me back my balm. Applying it feels reassuring, in the manner of meeting up with an old friend – but not essential. In the five days since then, I’ve only used it three times, all early evening. Whether this is because my lips feel like they could benefit from the protection, or because I want the comfort, I’m not completely sure, but I’m hopeful I’ve broken my compulsive habit, and it’s done my lips – and confidence – no end of good.
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