Is Blistex Toxic? (And What to Buy Instead)
Written by:
Maia James
Every time the weather changes, my and my kids’ lips become miserably chapped.
Related: Shop safest lip balms.
Blistex lip products definitely soothe super chapped, sore lips. Perhaps this explains why Blistex sells more than $100 million worth of their “medicated” lip balm every year! But is Blistex non-toxic?
While Blistex offers short-term relief from the pain of chapped lips, it contains ingredients that may carry other health risks.
Blistex lip products definitely soothe super chapped, sore lips. Perhaps this explains why Blistex sells more than $100 million worth of their “medicated” lip balm every year! But is Blistex non-toxic?
While Blistex offers short-term relief from the pain of chapped lips, it contains ingredients that may carry other health risks.
My Favorite Natural Lip Balm
I love the creamy texture and subtle scents of Soapwalla’s line of lip balms. It is super healthy
Soapwalla Lip Locked Lip Balm
This organic lip balm is amazing. Highest quality ingredients truly make for an amazing product and Soapwalla’s products are quite simply a step above the rest.
Soapwalla’s Lip Locked Lip Balm provides serious protection with Fair Trade and USDA Certified Organic ingredients.
Is Blistex Non-Toxic?
A tube of Blistex contains some 25 ingredients, including a variety of preservatives and dyes. Among the most concerning ingredients are the following, which you will find in various Blistex products:
Phenol. One of Blistex’s several active ingredients, phenol is considered toxic to the central nervous system and to the heart.- Saccharin. I won’t eat food with this artificial sweetener in it, and anything you smear on your mouth has sort of got to be considered food, right?
- Parabens. Unsurprisingly, these notorious, carcinogenic preservatives make an appearance in some Blistex formulas.
- Fragrance. We know that when we see “fragrance” on a label, that usually means the presence of phthalates.
- Oxybenzone. That really bad sunscreen ingredient that’s linked to cancer, developmental and reproductive toxicity, as well as endocrine disruption.
- Mineral oil. A petroleum product.
- Parraffin. Another petroleum product.
- Petrolatum. Yet another petroleum product.
(See our glossary for more on many of these ingredients, including links to studies that back up all these scary claims.)
This chemical cocktail is especially concerning in a product that you smear all over your mouth. (I’ve likely eaten several ounces of Blistex in my life, since in high school it was all I used.)
he good news is that there are many natural lip balms that really do work. I’ve heard from a lot of you about how thrilled (and yes, surprised!) you are that these natural products are actually effective.
Here are some of my favorite natural lip balms:
- Soapwalla’s coconut-lime lip balm is probably my favorite flavor of any lip balm I’ve tried. It’s also made by a wonderful women-owned business in Brooklyn.
- Green Goo makes healing balms in several flavors (my favorite is the honey), which come in a standard chapstick-style dispenser.
- Tandi’s Naturals lip balms are rich in avocado oil and beeswax, and are available in either Mint & Grapefruit or Herb Garden and come in a cool little tin (extra points for no plastic!).
- Weleda’s Skin Food for the lips has a cult following for a reason. It leaves lips noticeably hydrated and soft, especially in cold weather conditions.
- Badger makes some nice extra-large cocoa butter lip balms, which are great for little hands and make a perfect stocking stuffer. My kids love these most.
- If you like a lip balm that doubles as a lip tint, my absolute favorites are these from Olio E Osso. They also make a beautiful clear version, and all of them work for cheeks as well as lips.
- If you like a little luxury in your lip balm, I recommend Beautycounter’s lip conditioner, which also works really well over any of their lip sheers (I wear Terra).
Thankfully, lip balm is one category of products where choosing the Good Stuff doesn’t mean a sacrifice in performance (as opposed to, say, deodorant!). When my lips are chapped and painful, these natural balms really do bring complete relief.
Stay sane, and I hope you’re enjoying the winter season, chapped lips and all!
Maia, Founder & CEO
P.S. Please share your favorite lip balm brands below, or ask away if you have any you’d like us to investigate.
Note: This article contains affiliate links or sponsored content, which means that if you make a purchase, we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that meet our strict standards for non-toxicity and that we use (or want to use!) ourselves. Thank you so much for supporting the brands that make Good Stuff!
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I am also curious what you think about Burt’s bees and if you have a recommendation for a chapstick with spf. I see you recommended Babo and per your recommendation I use their soap, lotion, diaper cream etc for my daughter and love it but I woul like to find a chapstick with spf that is not color tinted. Thanks! As always I much appreciate all your hard work and information 🙂
I recently went on a bit of a product quest myself, as both my son and husband have eczema and I am always searching for the best natural products to help them. When it comes to eczema it seems like all the recommended products are chock full of nasty ingredients. During my research, I discovered that skin care products need a balance of three ingredients to effectively moisturize the skin: ceramides, fatty acids, and cholesterol. Armed with this information I set out to find the most natural products containing these ingredients. It was not easy! Many products contained one or two, but finding all three was very difficult. I realize many people may object to the use of cholesterol or lanolin in their products, but I was more interested in replicating the skins natural composition when locating products to use to treat my family. All this, just to say, what do you think of Burts Bee’s lip balm? I realize it’s not perfectly organic, but it does contain the proper ingredients for people suffering from eczema. (Also if you are interested I have developed an entire list of products for use in my family – we’re slowly trying them out one at a time). As a former cosmetology teacher and current stay-at-home mom, I feel pretty confident in my decisions, but I like to check for the icky ingredients here 🙂
So what do you think is the pay structure for the PR firms hired by companies like Blistex for trolling articles that point out the things ON THE LABEL. You think it’s by the post? Or is it a contract that stipulates X number of negative responses for each positive one?
Hopefully there’s a commission for really convincing troll posts, perhaps for substance, style, or an especially clever fake name. At least then maybe the people writing the sorts of trolling posts would get something for their trouble and a little extra happy hour cash for the indignity of having to take such a soul-sucking job after all the work they did making it through a college. And especially since the people writing these are probably overqualified, Ivy League educated young women working twice as hard as their male counterparts just to make it in the kind of big PR firms that would need an income stream like this.
I wouldn’t think, of course, that Blistex or its parent company would be dumb enough to put this kind of professional trolling thing in its own public relations department. But hey… the Tobacco and Big Pharma types did in their day in their own way so maybe we can all look forward to the lawsuits to come.
Thanks for the info Maia!
Thank you for this! Love your site so much! I also love John Masters organic lip balm. Hopefully that’s good stuff too because it works really well!
Sure is! The list above isn’t exhaustive by any means, just my current favorites!
I’m curious on the Babo product – I use their baby stuff and love it, but their lip balm does list “fragrance” – how would one know if this is synthetic or natural?
Babo uses only natural fragrances, so no worries there:).
Ok well I’m not here to weigh in on the debate in some of these comments, but to just ask about/recommend another lip balm that I think might be good! I really like Dr. Bronner’s organic lip balm and the ingredients look pretty good to me. Maia, do you think this is a good one too? I don’t see anything sneaky here.
Yes it’s good! The list above is definitely not exhaustive, just my personal faves:)
These comments are high comedy. Some of you need a hobby, a kick in the tail and a stiff drink! Maia, keep doing a great job. I don’t see anywhere that states you are a Dr or expert (actually you state that you are not), you are just trying to open people eyes to potential toxins (that unfortunately surround us) and (hopefully) encourage them to do their own due diligence before blindly trusting whatever is in front of them. Such a shame that these people don’t seem to get that. I hope you laughed at all this, I sure did! Keep up the great work, I appreciate the research you do. Your site is a great starting place for conducting ones own research.
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