How to beat a lip balm addiction.

I am a little bored right now and couldn't think of what to write about. So I thought I'd share with ya'll how I beat my lip balm addiction.

It all started at the age of 12, when I was given a set of 'Lip Smackers' as a birthday present. Lip Smackers are basically a tube of shiny smelly goo in flavours such as 'peanut butter,' 'jellybean,' 'lemonade,' and 'oreo'. Infused with the aromas of various low grade junk foods, Lip Smackers are like crack cocaine for your lips. Surely it is obvious by now that these things are EVIL, and I had an evil addiction from the word go. The problem with these products is that they strip off the natural coating from your lips, and inhibit your own ability to self-moisten. This creates a vicious cycle - you use the product, your lips get drier, you have to use the product more to relieve the dryness, your lips get drier still, and so on.

Anyhow, I soon grew tired of the gross sweet smear effect of the Lip Smackers, but as I had been drawn into the vicious cycle I couldn't escape this product type entirely. So I then moved onto the slightly less offensive, but still unhelpful product; the strawberry chapstick. The most loathesome thing about chapsticks is their supposed sweet sweet innocence; they catch you in, and for many the relationship develops into a lifelong obsession.

I used this product from the age of 14 until I was about 18 or 19. It was then that I was introduced to the tub of the gods, BLISTEX. When you apply Blistex to your lips, you are treated with a rather pleasant tingling sensation that no other lip balm provides. I couldn't leave the house without my tub. Sometimes I would be caught out without a tub and I had to either go back home for it, or buy another one. The thing that bothered me most about Blistex was one of the ingredients - phenol; which I think may be responsible for the pleasant tingling. Anyhow, this chemical has rather grim historical connections - in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, phenol was injected directly into the hearts of some unfortunate inmates during fatal medical experiments. This nazi-balm historical connection always bothered me greatly.

In 2008 I realised that I had been addicted to lip balms for 11 years. I estimate that in my lifetime I have spent about $300 on lipbalms. It seems like a relatively small and innocuous amount of money to spend on a 'beauty product' over 11 years, but think of all the other millions of people who have done the same - and then you realise how evil these corporations are - selling these products that lock people into inescapable addictions that fuck up parts of their face.

Anyway, the way to beat a lip balm addiction is simple. Throw out all your lip balms and buy a small tub of vaseline. Even with the use of the vaseline, your lips will probably dry and crack and it will all be very unpleasant for about a week. This will pass. After that, contine with your use of the vaseline when needed. You will notice that it has very few of the addictive properties of the other marketed lip balms, and you will not need it as much. Start to get more disciplined - i.e, only use it once in morning, once at lunch and once before bed. Keep cutting it down and then one day you will find yourself, as I did, at a party without my tub. I didn't panic and I was totally fine. This could be you!