Anyone else ever attempted to stop using 'chapstick'?

So I have been trying to cut out my remains few 'bad habits', the continual application of l'chapstick' being one of them. 10+ times a day bad habit and feelings of panic whenever I went out and forgot it etc... Not necessarily chapstick brand, I have used more organic types for years but nonetheless it has been a MISERABLE past 2 weeks. Lips peel, crack, bleed, repeat and feel HORRIBLE, like I have 60 grit sandpaper instead of lips (which are a far more sensitive body part than I ever realized before!). Holy crap, I never knew this stuff could be so bad since it seems so innocent. I grew up in the 90's, started using "lip smackers' in grade school so it's a pretty much lifelong habit. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's had this kind of reaction either. All kinds of stories on the internet of people developing similar issues for months after ceasing the use of lip balms and that some companies even add specific ingredients to make it "addictive" (i.e. so uncomfortable to stop using you never do). The feeling it of it not being on my lips just feels...wrong. I quit smoking cold turkey years ago which is supposedly one of the hardest addictions to break and even that was a less agitating process than this has been. Never again!

Any of you ever tried to stop using this stuff and had this kind of reaction? Or anyone out there brave enough to dare to try giving it up

Are you dehydrated, by chance?

Flboy said:

Are you dehydrated, by chance?

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Definitely not. I drink way more than most people to begin with snd don't really drink anything but water (no coffee, soda, or even juices recently, just a single cup of plain tea in the morning followed by several bottles of water throughout the day). Plus, I've have been chugging extra water since my lips started this process (it doesn't help). This is what years of damage has done- my lips can no longer retain moisture and must heal. Nasty, nasty stuff lip balm is!

Get a very. very soft toothbrush and brush your lips very gently after brushing your teeth -> you will improve circulation in your lips and get over that sandpapery feeling faster.
(you can always apply a bit of (natural) oil after that )

I love chapsticks in winter, but dislike the sticky feeling, so for me ...no, not habbitforming at all.

I used to be a carmix addict. Can you try plain face lotion, shouldn't have that addictive crap, might help you bridge till your lios recover. Winter kinda the worst time to kick!! But you can do it, maybe an expensive good lipstick, aloe vera?

Skin on the lips is thinner and does dry out quicker. I’m probably not allowed to mention specific brand names (?) but there’s a guy whose name starts with B who owns some Bees who makes a very nice lip balm with a hint of colour. Also a French company (four letters starts with D..r) makes a beautiful colourless but colour-enhancing (clever!) lipstick/balm which I use and love.

I’ve never been a fan of Chapstick but those two are great alternatives.

LaManuka said:

Skin on the lips is thinner and does dry out quicker. I’m probably not allowed to mention specific brand names (?) but there’s a guy whose name starts with B who owns some Bees who makes a very nice lip balm with a hint of colour. Also a French company (four letters starts with D..r) makes a beautiful colourless but colour-enhancing (clever!) lipstick/balm which I use and love.

I’ve never been a fan of Chapstick but those two are great alternatives.

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Those are the "more organic" brands I was eluding to that I'm quitting and have caused this reaction It wasn't even the petroleum based products that caused this, it was the natural ones!

Really? Even the French one? The Bees one I can kinda understand but the other..?

Maybe you’ve become hypersensitised over time but I still think Monsieur D..r is worth a try.

It's like when you wash your hair daily, your body tries to compensate by making more oil--if you wash your hair less, it gets oily less quickly (but it takes time). In this case, you have applied an oil so your nature moisture mechanisms are all messed up. Give it time and it will pass. Your body just needs to understand that it will have to pick up the slack when "chapstick" stops doing all the work.

I feel your pain, my addiction is Vaseline for my lips. I absolutely panic if I forget it, and have a tube in each room. Back when I used to wear lipstick, I still had to have some Vaseline on top because my lips felt so dry and started to crack. I think I will take this addiction to my grave.

I did a post on this like last year...

http://www.parrotforums.com/questions-answers/70381-there-anything-dangerous-about-chapstick.html

Basically I have luscious lips. I dunno if it's bad or good, probably not an issue, but see the recommendations of others in that thread.

Kiwibird said:

So I have been trying to cut out my remains few 'bad habits', the continual application of l'chapstick' being one of them. 10+ times a day bad habit and feelings of panic whenever I went out and forgot it etc... Not necessarily chapstick brand, I have used more organic types for years but nonetheless it has been a MISERABLE past 2 weeks. Lips peel, crack, bleed, repeat and feel HORRIBLE, like I have 60 grit sandpaper instead of lips (which are a far more sensitive body part than I ever realized before!). Holy crap, I never knew this stuff could be so bad since it seems so innocent. I grew up in the 90's, started using "lip smackers' in grade school so it's a pretty much lifelong habit. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's had this kind of reaction either. All kinds of stories on the internet of people developing similar issues for months after ceasing the use of lip balms and that some companies even add specific ingredients to make it "addictive" (i.e. so uncomfortable to stop using you never do). The feeling it of it not being on my lips just feels...wrong. I quit smoking cold turkey years ago which is supposedly one of the hardest addictions to break and even that was a less agitating process than this has been. Never again!

Any of you ever tried to stop using this stuff and had this kind of reaction? Or anyone out there brave enough to dare to try giving it up

Click to expand...

I wish you the very best, but it would be an epic-fail if I ever tried to quit using Chapstick, lip balm, whatever you want to call it...It's not like they make it easy on us with all the flavors and neato packaging...I have a problem with buying all the different Eos "eggs", and now all the stores have their own store-brands copying Eos for half the price...In fact, I just bought a Giant-Eagle store brand Eos egg that is "Mint Chocholate-Chip Ice Cream"...I think I've actually been eating it without realizing it...

Worst time of year to try to quit chapstick/lip balm too, the same with constantly putting on hand-lotion...I shake the public's hands all day long and am constantly using hand-sanitizer and then going outside in the car lot, so forget about it, I go through lip balm and hand-lotion like water right through until April...I could probably pay my mortgage with the money I spend every winter on lip balm and hand lotion...

Kiwibird said:

So I have been trying to cut out my remains few 'bad habits', the continual application of l'chapstick' being one of them. 10+ times a day bad habit and feelings of panic whenever I went out and forgot it etc... Not necessarily chapstick brand, I have used more organic types for years but nonetheless it has been a MISERABLE past 2 weeks. Lips peel, crack, bleed, repeat and feel HORRIBLE, like I have 60 grit sandpaper instead of lips (which are a far more sensitive body part than I ever realized before!). Holy crap, I never knew this stuff could be so bad since it seems so innocent. I grew up in the 90's, started using "lip smackers' in grade school so it's a pretty much lifelong habit. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's had this kind of reaction either. All kinds of stories on the internet of people developing similar issues for months after ceasing the use of lip balms and that some companies even add specific ingredients to make it "addictive" (i.e. so uncomfortable to stop using you never do). The feeling it of it not being on my lips just feels...wrong. I quit smoking cold turkey years ago which is supposedly one of the hardest addictions to break and even that was a less agitating process than this has been. Never again!

Any of you ever tried to stop using this stuff and had this kind of reaction? Or anyone out there brave enough to dare to try giving it up

Click to expand...

Oh my god, LIPSMACKERS!!! You're a 90's kid too, huh? Yeah, the birth of the fun and addictive lip balms...

Flboy said:

Are you dehydrated, by chance?

Click to expand...

I probably don't drink enough water (bad car-dog habit, we drink nothing but coffee all day long because we work 12-hour days and are outside in the cold all day long...But that's definitely not the reason my lips also become like a sanding block...My skin has always gotten horribly dried out and chapped/cracked in the winter, my hands crack so badly sometimes that they start bleeding around my fingernails while typing, lol..no joke...I think with me it's because I'm constantly outside then inside, then outside and inside all day long, every day, from 8:30 in the morning until at least 8:00 at night...It's too much cold air then warm air, combined with me constantly washing them and using hand-sanitizer every time I shake someone's hand (which is probably around 40+ times a day)...We have the most horrible hand-sanitizer all over the dealerships too, it's everywhere, in all of our offices, on our desks, on the sales tower counter, on the service desk, in the customer lounge, etc. It's the kind that is alcohol-based, I think some of them now have Aloe-Vera in them but it doesn't help...Then I go outside in the cold, then I come in and wash them because I get grease or whatever on them, etc...It's bad...nothing to do with dehydration through, my lips are the same as my hands...so bad...

And keep in-mind that I'm a recovering opiate-addict, that was easier than quitting the lip balm

There has to be a support group...

I have my favorite, too, especially for this dry winter time of year, I use Chapstick Total Hydration and it's the BOMB. No smell, no sticky feeling or minty ness. I drink a lot of water too and still get dry, crapped lips too that drive me crazy if I don't keep them hydrated during the winter, so I always have some on me during this season. I can't even sleep some nights without it, my lips are soooo dry.

What's helped me is using a lip scrub (I use Jeffree Star brand, they're vegan, cruelty free, etc.) to get rid of the excess skin and it also helps moisturize my lips a little. It's just sugar so you can eat the scrub. I then apply my chapstick over and it's good for the day, though I apply my chapstick around 5 times a day and use the scrub a couple times a week. You aren't alone!!

ChristaNL said:

Get a very. very soft toothbrush and brush your lips very gently after brushing your teeth -> you will improve circulation in your lips and get over that sandpapery feeling faster.
(you can always apply a bit of (natural) oil after that )

I love chapsticks in winter, but dislike the sticky feeling, so for me ...no, not habbitforming at all.

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Oh, if you get a "sticky" feeling on your lips, then you're just not using the right kind of "chapstick", which is definitely not the regular Chapstick-brand type...If you use any of the Eos types, or any of the squeeze-tube ones like the Vasoline brand ones they are amazing...smooth, not sticky at all, and just immediately make your lips soft and silky...See, I'm jonesing right now...

Ooh, the Softlips and the AquaFina brands are also amazing...in a stick, but make your lips instantly soft and smooth...Regular Chapstick sucks now that I think about it...

Every night after brushing I s-l-a-t-h-e-r Vaseline on my lips and let it soak in overnight. That seems to help keep the dryness down during the winter. I have rarely needed to apply anything during the day.

While we're on this subject, I have a huge complaint by the way, lol...So the lip-balm company EcoLips is probably the best one you can order from health and environmental wise, all organic, they offer all vegan, they make their tubes from recycled plastic, etc. And they use all kinds of inovative oils, waxes, herbs, spices, etc.

About 3 years ago I got on their page and was totally excited because you could actually create your own lip-balm recipes totally from scratch, invent your own flavors, and design your own tubes and labels. It was awesome...I created 4 different lip-balms of my own totally from scratch...And it was right down to the oils, waxes, vitamin additives, etc., and then also the flavor design....And then the labels and tubes, right down to the color of tubes, the caps, the labels, the fonts, etc. All 4 came out amazing, but one that I made in-particular was the most amazing lip-balm I've ever used...I called my brand "Punk Lips", and each was a different recipe (for different occasions, one was better for cold weather, one was better for being in the sun, one was better for wearing overnight, and one was a conditioning lip-balm), and then each one was a different flavor that I created....But the flavor I called "Cherry Bomb" just blew me away...It was a cherry-citrus flavor and you could have eaten it if you wanted to...I still have the tubes, oh, that's the other thing, you could order different size tubes (luckily I ordered the larger tubes that are the equivalent to probably 3 regular chapstick-size tubes), and I also added an end-cap to each one that had a Carabiner attached to it that was made out of 100% recycled metal, and you could also choose the color of the end-cap and the Carabiner...It was amazing...And the custom labels you designed listed every single ingredient you added yourself, and the label also included a "Recipe #"
so that you could re-order the exact same recipe again, or you could bring a recipe up on their customization website and tweak it if you didn't like something about it, you could add ingredients, remove ingredients, change the ratios, and then tweak the flavor if it wasn't strong enough, wasn't sweet enough, etc. It was amazing...And I can't begin to describe the hundreds of different ingredients you could use to create your recipes...You started with making the base formula, then you would select any additives you wanted to add-in, then you would create your flavors by adding as many natural extracts, juices, etc. that you wanted to, and then you would choose whether you wanted it to be sweet, and if so how sweet you wanted it to be (sweetened with natural Stevia), or if you wanted it to be sour you'd add natural citrus extracts, etc...It was awesome...I think I paid around $12 per custom recipe for the larger tubes plus shipping...And I went back on the customization website, logged-in to my account, typed in my recipe numbers, and tweaked the other 3 flavors and recipes a bit, and re-ordered easily (my "Cherry Bomb" flavor was absolutely perfect and I luckily ordered like 10 large tubes of it, so I still have a few unopened tubes that are still sealed)...

AND OF COURSE ECOLIPS STOPPED DOING THIS FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS UNLESS YOU ORDER A MINIMUM OF 1,000 TUBES! I'm sure they decided that their profit on the custimized lip-balm recipes wasn't high enough so they stopped it all-together and made it wholesale-only to businesses...Trust me, at what they charged they certainly weren't losing any money, their shipping was also expensive for a couple little tubes of lip-balm...I was bummed...I still am...I'm glad I still have a few unopened tubes of my recipes, but it just sucks...I wrote them an email about it, did nothing but I vented to them, lol...

If any of you ever created your own EcoLips lip-balm recipes or even just created your own recipe and saved it without actually ordering it, you know what I'm talking about...It was awesome...

EllenD said:

Kiwibird said:

So I have been trying to cut out my remains few 'bad habits', the continual application of l'chapstick' being one of them. 10+ times a day bad habit and feelings of panic whenever I went out and forgot it etc... Not necessarily chapstick brand, I have used more organic types for years but nonetheless it has been a MISERABLE past 2 weeks. Lips peel, crack, bleed, repeat and feel HORRIBLE, like I have 60 grit sandpaper instead of lips (which are a far more sensitive body part than I ever realized before!). Holy crap, I never knew this stuff could be so bad since it seems so innocent. I grew up in the 90's, started using "lip smackers' in grade school so it's a pretty much lifelong habit. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's had this kind of reaction either. All kinds of stories on the internet of people developing similar issues for months after ceasing the use of lip balms and that some companies even add specific ingredients to make it "addictive" (i.e. so uncomfortable to stop using you never do). The feeling it of it not being on my lips just feels...wrong. I quit smoking cold turkey years ago which is supposedly one of the hardest addictions to break and even that was a less agitating process than this has been. Never again!

Any of you ever tried to stop using this stuff and had this kind of reaction? Or anyone out there brave enough to dare to try giving it up

Click to expand...

Oh my god, LIPSMACKERS!!! You're a 90's kid too, huh? Yeah, the birth of the fun and addictive lip balms...

Click to expand...

I was all about the Dr. Pepper flavor...and some sort of glittery vanilla (maybe cupcake?)

lol, the 80's had some nasty lipbalms too (liplickers anyone?)


https://i1.wp.com/clickamericana.co...ickers-vintage-retro.jpg?resize=500,282&ssl=1


The cola&cherry was so bad you could smell people coming down a crowded hallway (and yes: sticky and apply with rubbing a finger )