Words for Wednesday : Carmex

I love Carmex.

I used to strictly use the pot of Carmex only.  I would rub my lips in the pot, instead of rubbing my finger in it to rub on my lips.  Reasoning - why do I want a greasy substance on my fingers after it has been applied?  People said it was weird, and that it looked like I was making out with the container.  What evs people. Mind yer business.

It's a true story. And I am not ashamed.

I have loved Carmex for as long as I could remember.  There is something about the menthol/cool feeling that I LOVE.  Well, that, and when my lips are really chapped, it only takes like half a day for them to feel normal again.

I was at work today, and I put some Carmex on, and did that little >POP< after putting it on, and someone just happened to be walking by and saw/heard me do it.  And we also just happened to make eye contact.  A little embarrassing, but nothing out of the ordinary really.

But I was recanting the story, and they said that Carmex is horrible for your lips, that there was fiberglass in the Carmex. WHAT!?!! No way! 

I decide to take a look at the ingredient list..

Active ingredients - Camphor, Menthol and Phenol. Same as always, maybe fiber glass is not considered an 'active' ingredient. 

Let's scroll lower.. 

Inactive: Petrolatum, lanolin, cetyl esters, theobroma cocoa (cocoa) seed butter, mineral oil, beeswax, flavor, salicylic acid.  The only thing that sort of caught my attention was the salicylic acid - well that and 'flavor'. Who knew that Carmex had 'flavor'?

See, salicylic acid is in facial cleansers and acne medications and what nots to slough off dead skin cells, to help your fresh skin show faster.  They use it in those facial peels.  Higher percentage of the acid, the deeper it sloughs off/burns down to.

Which at least let's me know why you would only want to use Carmex a few times a day.

So of course I had to research it.  I pulled up Snopes.com, and read what they had to say.  Basically what they had to say was a lot of blah blah blah, 'no fiberglass'.  But I am never happy with just the skim of the surface information.  So I continued on my quest for more knowledge.

I came across this Museum of Hoaxes website. They say the same thing, but they also offer up a link to the Lip Balm Anonymous website. They have some light hearted 'letters to the editor' on there, also a page about 'Are Balms Addicting'.  But still I wasn't satisfied. 

I clicked on over to the Wikipedia link, and read up on Carmex there. They go in to some more detail, referencing people's concern over the fiberglass content, and how it is not in the Carmex.  But they do bring up, "The use of phenol in cosmetics is prohibited in the European Union".  Which then intrigued me. 

What is wrong with 'phenol'? And also, what is it?

So I had to click and dive deeper into Wikipedia for the article on Phenol.  Turns out that 'phenol' is also an acid.  But it is used in stuff like Chloraseptic spray, and from how I am interpreting it, it helps to numb, and kill bacteria and other stuff, as it is an antiseptic. And if used improperly, (or properly I guess) it can kill a man.  (Not a women, they are too darn smart. *maybe not the most accurate*)

When I looked at the Carmex Website, I found they had 'The Little Lip Book' available for download. I did.  It says in there that salicylic acid loosens the keratin layer and allows the chaps to fall off.  Which totally makes sense when you think of what it does in other cosmetics/facial cleansers.

So, at the end of this rambling.  Carmex is not bad, only use it a few times a day (you won't need to use it more), and there is no fiberglass present in their lip balms.

I personally think there is something wrong with waxy Chapstick. Only good thing for them, is if you wanted to coat your lips to protect them from something, like a spray tan. But that's my opinion.