Lip Balm Anonymous

During the early stages of research for our lip balm, we came across an online community dedicated to supporting people who are struggling with addiction to lip balm called Lip Balm Anonymous (LBA). After perusing the message boards, we realized that there was a huge community of individuals struggling with a real addiction to lip balm. Upon reading the countless stories about people struggling with an addiction to lip balm, we decided that we needed to shift our focus to understanding the current state and problems with the lip balm industry. Our philosophy has always been that if you don’t completely understand the problems within a market, how can you possibly fix it? We truly believe that we did fix the problem, but this article is more than just a plug for our LipRx lip balm. It is a profile of the history of the lip balm industry, a state of the union regarding the current industry, and the genesis of our CBD infused lip balm specifically formulated to avoid addiction and naturally heal you lips.

I. A Brief History

ChapStick was invented in the early 1880’s by Dr. C.D. Fleet in Lynburg Virginia. Despite all of his efforts, Dr. Fleet was never able to bring ChapStick to the mainstream and in 1912, he sold the rights to ChapStick for $5 to John Morton. John had limited success selling ChapStick to consumers, but It wasn’t until 1971 that ChapStick really started to create an industry and huge demand for its products. So what happened in 1971?

In 1971, ChapStick introduced four flavored sticks to its line... and the rest is history. How could flavored lip balm create a multi-billion industry? Was it genius marketing for a feature that had no real benefit, kind of like the Nike air-bubble? Did it solve chapped lips outbreak that was sweeping the nation? Or did the product itself create the problem and the solution? To find out the the answer to these questions, one has to look no further than the ingredient listing in the most common brands of lip balm.

II. Ingredients

Our lips do not have any oil glands and they can dry out extremely fast. However, our lips do have the ability to produce fresh new skin cells to fight this. But what if the current market of lip balms contained chemicals that irritated the lips or slowed down the production of new skin cells? Could this create create a psychological addiction based on the dryness and irritation users feel on their lips when their lip balm begins to wear out? Let's take a closer look at some of the ingredients in common lip balm brands.

Menthol

Most of the popular lip balm brands contain menthol. Menthol creates a nice cooling sensation that many people associate with healthy moisturized lips. However, many studies have shown that menthol can actually irritate the skin and the temporary cooling sensation will mask that irritation until you reapply, thus creating a vicious cycle.  Another substitution for menthol used by the industry is camphor, which is a counter-irritant and has drying effects on the skin which can be helpful in treating cold sores. However, if you don’t need to heal cold sores, there is no reason for you to dry out your skin to this degree.

When you are choosing a lip balm in the future, don’t select a lip balm because of its “cooling” properties from the menthol. Think about the story of Claude Hopkins and Pepsodent tooth paste. Pepsodent was a lackluster company before Claude Hopkins took over their marketing. Claude identified that the mint oil used in the tooth paste caused a tingling sensation in the mouth of the user. However, the mint oil did not clean the teeth at all, it was solely used to prevent the paste from becoming “gluey” on the shelves. Claude started marketing that tingling sensation as the feeling of a clean mouth and the rest is history. Even though the chemicals that originally caused this tingling sensation are irritants, they are still used in all major brands of tooth paste today.

Flavoring

Our lips are mucous membranes that have a thin top layer of surface skin. Every time that you lick your lips, you are taking away vital regenerative cells used in keeping mucous membrane moisturized. So why does strong flavoring in your lip balms matter? Because you end up licking your lips all day to taste the flavoring, thus making your lips even drier!

Phenol

Phenol is one of the many active ingredients in Blistex. It has been linked to coma & seizures as well as being considered toxic to the heart and nervous system.

Saccharin

Saccharin is an artificial sweetener that is 300-400 times as sweet as table sugar. This is a personal preference, but I avoid artificial sweeteners when I eat, so why would I want a constant inflow of artificial sweeteners into my body when I use lip balm.

Parabens

Parabens are used as preservatives in many formulas for popular lip balms. A 1977 study found that Parabens can cause skin irritation and contact dermatitis and rosacea in individuals.

Petroleum Products

Most of the popular brands of lip balm contain multiple petroleum products such as mineral oils, parraffins and petrolatums.

 

III. The Genesis of the Cannabis Lip Balm

After months of studying the lip balm industry, we finally understood the problem and felt ready to solve it. Cue the drum roll…… so we created LipRx.

LipRx uses a bouquet of natural & cruelty-free ingredients to create the base for of lip balm. These ingredients include Bees Wax, Rose Hip Seed Oil, Vitamin E, and Argan Oil. None of these ingredients have been shown to irritate your skin and they are all naturally occurring ingredients in nature. It's always nice to see ingredients that we can identify and pronounce! However, the real secret to our lip balm comes from Cannabidiol (CBD). We use 100mg of active CBD in every tiny container of our lip balm. So is this marijuana lip balm? Although that sounds fun, LipRx uses CBD extracted from industrial hemp cannabis plants which do not produce THC.

So why is CBD such a keystone ingredient in our lip balm? A 2010 study in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology revealed that the endocannabinoid system is critical to the life cycle of basal cells, which make up around 90% of the cells in the epidermis. The use of CBD topically can actually help the endocannabinoid system regenerate cells. We wanted to create a lip balm that helped your skin regenerate, not create a reliance on our product. The CBD and Hemp Oil actually hold the key to getting your lips back to their natural self-regenerating state

IV. The Future

We didn’t fully understand the true depth of the LipRx Lip Balm until we started testing it. We put our lip balm to the test in extremely harsh environments like wintertime in the desert and the ski slopes of Colorado. As the study progressed, we all realized that even on the most harsh days of winter, we only needed to apply a few times a day and that our skin had completely stopped flaking off. We are bringing LipRx to the market not as the owners of its formula, but as daily users of the product and former lip balm addicts. We believe in cannabis infused lip balm and want to help ween you off of the harsh chemicals found in common lip balm brands.

When you are choosing a lip balm in the future, remember the story of Claude Hopkins and Pepsodent tooth paste. We aren’t selling a sensation at CAUSE+MEDIC. We aren’t selling some sort of “cue, routine, reward” product that can cause a psychological addiction. We are selling a CBD infused lip balm that we are confident will heal your lips. #bekindtoyourskin and break your addiction today!