Hunting down the best lip balm is important: The skin on your lips is thinner than it is on the rest of your body, so it’s also the most prone to dryness and cracking. Threats to your lips come from everywhere: sunburn, windburn, cold and dry air, bacteria, cold sores, you name it. (It’s a rough world out there for your kisser.) For all these reasons, you need a plan to keep that skin strong and smooth—and that solution comes packed into a tiny tube or tin.
The Best Lip Balms Shopping Guide
A great lip balm should be chock-full of nourishing oils like sunflower, castor, or tea tree, and skin-smoothing butters like cocoa or shea. Highly concentrated balms prevent dryness and cuts from worsening, while preserving existing moisture and protecting lips from the daily assault of the outside world. Whether you’re treating chapped lips or preventing the next parching, we rounded up 11 of our favorite balms (after testing about 700,000 of them), to help you ID the best lip balm for your specific needs.
The Best Lip Balm Overall
It doesn’t matter if you spend your free time scanning subreddits or are a wee skin care newbie—if you’ve done even the scantest of research on lip care, chances are you’ve come across Aquaphor’s Lip Repair. Formulated with a moisturizing blend of vitamins, shea butter, and soothing chamomile, the lightweight ointment seals in moisture for lips that feel smooth all day (it’s also fragrance-free, making it great for for sensitive skin). The real draw point of this best-seller, though, might be the price—a 2-pack rings in at under $10. The grooming space is crowded with no shortage of buzzy upstarts, but Aquaphor’s no-frills balm continues to set the standard.
The Best Lip Balm for Overnight Recovery
If your lips are feeling particularly rough this winter, it’s time to call in the reinforcements, a.k.a. an ultra-moisturizing lip treatment specifically designed to soothe and repair while you catch those blissful Zs. We like Kiehl’s emollient-rich lip mask, which is packed with mango butter and softening coconut oil, because it goes on smooth, leaves a lightweight finish, and packs a hefty punch. Slather on before hitting the sack and wake up to lips so smooth you’ll feel like you’re still dreaming.
The Best Lip Balm with SPF
Don’t wait to find out the hard way: Your lips need SPF protection, too. Jack Black’s excellent balm uses SPF 25 to shield your kisser from UV rays, and also delivers just the right amount of vitamin E and green tea, which further protects against skin-aging toxins.
The Best All-Natural Lip Balm
One of our favorite Dr. Bronner’s products is this diminutive-seeming beeswax balm, which uses organic oils to hydrate and soften the lips. Jojoba, avocado, and hemp deliver nourishment and moisture, while an extra sprig of peppermint finishes the job with a telltale tingle of freshness.
The Best Scented Lip Balm
Malin+Goetz’s mojito-scented, gel-based balm uses fatty acids to soften and plump the lips on contact, while shielding them from further strain. It’s in a squeeze tube, instead of a roll-on stick, so it’s easy to share some with anyone you’re smooching. (Logistically speaking, this shouldn’t have concerned you in the first place, but still.) It’s also easier to distribute on skin cuts or hang nails, which might give you the best-smelling cuticles this side of the Mississippi.
The Best Prescription-Grade Lip Balm
If you’ve got more than simply chapped lips—we’re talking cold sores and fever blisters—then speed up the recovery process with this menthol- and eucalyptus-infused drugstore favorite. (It goes without saying that it works as a supercharged balm to standard-level dryness, too.)
The Best Lip Balm That Feels Like Skin Care
What better way to treat your lips to a little much needed R&R than with a salve reliably employed at the swankiest of spas? The Aussie skin care whizzes at Aesop employ a nourishing blend of castor seed oil and refreshing citrus, which allows their all-natural formula to lather on like a top-shelf gel moisturizer.
The Best Splurge-Worthy Lip Balm
Trust us: Your kissers will never feel as luscious as they do after you apply a dollop of this luxe tin. Dr. Barbara Sturm’s formula blends shea butter, avocado oil, coconut oil, beeswax, and Vitamin E to guarantee you the most buttery-smooth, radiant pucker in a 5-mile radius.
The Best Multi-Purpose Lip Balm
Lips dry, hands dry, body dry all over? You can buy a targeted balm to slather on or stock up on this one-for-all best-seller. Rich in smoothing oils that’ll lock in moisture while unlocking an ungodly glow, a tin of Rosebud Salve will leave you feeling ultra-soft—sans the greasy feel. Feel free to apply with impunity; you can touch up dry spots, wherever, whenever, to thwart surprise cracks in the dead of winter.
The Best Lip Balm for Winter Defense
Between the sun and wind exposure at high altitudes (or even on standard-fare, low-elevation locales), you need a lip balm that can shield you from the gnarliest elements. O’Keeffe’s dry skin- busting balm is made for the guy who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, but with a whopping SPF 35 added to the mix, you can keep your paws nice and smooth—and mercifully UV-damage free.
The Best Exfoliating Lip Balm
Exfoliation isn’t typically top of mind for the lips, unless you choose to deploy a gritty lip scrub. But there are some low-grade hydroxy acid formulas that help break down dead skin and leave your lips supremely smooth. CosRx’s recipe combines both core types of hydroxy acids (that’s alpha and beta) to help soften lips while you sleep. It’s technically a “mask” and not a “balm”, so don’t use it as your daily hydrator—rather, apply a little bit whenever you get cracked and peely, rather than picking at the dead skin yourself.
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