A Love Story and an Ode to All the Lip Balms That Got Away
Disclaimer: The blog post you are about to read is unfiltered. Read at your own risk! ⚠️
Who is actually finishing their lip balm?
I can’t say that I have ever used any single lip gloss/balm/chapstick/lipstick more than 3 times before I lost it, forgot about it, or let it meet its timely death in a dryer.
I watch quietly as my client gets so excited about the new plump lip glosses we carry in my skincare studio. GIRRRRRLLLLLL, they exclaim, this Berry Breeze color is FIREEEEEE!!!! 🔥
There’s a part of me that considers (even if for a minute) taking one home to its untimely death. But then I say no, not today. Maybe I’ll snag a tester, because let's be honest, those can last for-everrr. They look great on the shelf and sell like candy — at least until the next color drops.
I then find myself wondering…
Who are these women anyway? The ones who never leave the house without a perfectly pouted lip?
Why is it that Kylie Jenner can pull off 3 different steps to her lip routine, and yet the only time I actually want to use my chapstick is when I can't find it?
I see it all the time. Lip plumpers, subtle peaches, and glossy reds. I am fascinated by anyone who can successfully remember to gloss.
A Love Story in Lip Products
I remember the one I kept around the longest. Electric blue, matched my glitter eyeshadow, and I was 13. THAT one. It was my whole identity back when I didn’t have anything else to worry about besides smelling like cheap perfume and smoking cigs behind the movie theatre. That lip balm was iconic. A whole ass era. It almost even made it to the end. I honestly don’t know where it ended up, but I know I wouldn’t have dared throw it away.
And so I reflect. On many glosses that got away.
Here are a few that are long gone, but never forgotten. Let’s start at the beginning, and watch my age progress via my lip choices. I promise, it’s all about the journey, not the destination.
🫶🏼 Bonne Bell Dr. Pepper
The Elementary Backpack staple.
It all had to start somewhere. I convinced myself this wasn’t as gross as it was because it was such a status symbol to have this chunky-ass, plastic-tasting chapstick around my neck, thanks to the matching necklace it came with. So I applied this shit all day long and licked my lips until I had a stomach ache from whatever ingredients that are probably banned now.
Pretty much everything I did between grades K-5 made me sick now that I think about it.
The death of Bonne Bell came in the form of a camping trip, where I left it in the back of the car in 90-degree weather and came back to a whole ass mess on the fabric seats of a Buick. Sorry, not sorry.
🌈 True Colors - Shimmery pigment stacks
The ultimate Christmas gift.
Why have one color of plastic lip coating when you can have 12 in a row? Elementary school, the later years, was all about stacking colors, as many as you could get your hands on. I had at least 27 different colored butterfly clips in my hair, 100 gel pens in my backpack, and even my toe socks (yup, remember those?) were an entire rainbow of color. So having a stack of lip glosses in what looked like different colors on my desk only made sense. Too bad none of them ever showed a single color on my lips. That was my first intro to false advertising.
I believe I got these, got excited about em for a split second, and they ended up in “THE” tote. You know the one. The staple tote of the late 90’s/early 2000’s where everything from your childhood - Barbies, hair ties, McDonalds toys, random socks, and whatever was left of my pigment stacks - went to die.
😋 Fruity Rollerballs
Revolutionizing the lip game.
Remember when suddenly EVERYTHING was a roller ball, like overnight? From the glitter on my cheeks, to the deodorant I was wearing, to the super wet and sticky shit I rubbed on my lips. These were fruity as hell and, if memory serves me, actually a pretty decent gloss.
No way would I have ever thrown these out, or let them die in a hot car. But these were a part of the purse era. And anything that went in the “little zipper part” never came back out again. So tragic.
👄 MAC Frost
BRO. This shit. It literally made my lips holographic. I’m pretty sure I also had this one in blue, pink, and silver. Dope as HELL. Kinda wanna go find it again, to be honest. This was the lipstick of choice the very first year I wore a bra. Pre-teen era shit.
This one got copped for sure. Teens are such sticky-finger assholes. I hope whoever stole this from my purse at least had the human decency to finish it. It deserved to be used.
🫦 Lancome Juicy Tubes
I still associate these with Marlboro 27’s. I remember it like it was yesterday, sitting in the backseat of a car with someone I absolutely should not have been in a car with. Cleaning tobacco out of the ridges of my juicy tubes before applying it in all its sticky loveliness. I'm sure these ended up in a ditch somewhere, based on my lifestyle at the time.
🤷🏼♀️ Regular ass chapstick
Once I got out of high school and into a functional relationship, my focus shifted from high-gloss lips to baking bread. Lip colors lost their importance, and sweatpants became my absolute wardrobe staple. I was fully playing house at this age - cooking dinner every night, watching movies on the couch, and being a whole-ass homebody girlfriend.
Which led me straight into the ultimate, absolute plot twist of a lip era…
😲 A&D Ointment - The fucking plot twist.
March 10, 2009. He arrived at a whopping 10lbs and 15oz after three inductions and a C-section, changing my life overnight.
Babies are full of shitty diapers and butt rashes, and he was no exception. 👶🏼
Desitin, Aquaphor, baby powder (we had no clue just how bad that was yet). One ointment reigned KING over the rest. Good ol A&D Ointment. Shit, what used to be cracked and problematic went away almost overnight.
So I had a thought.
If this ointment could do that to my infant’s backside, what could it do to my chapped lips? So, lo and behold… the next time I was at the pharmacy, I bought two. One for him, and one for me.
The rest is basically history.
True talk - the first time I pulled a tube of diaper ointment out and put it on my lips in public, I felt like a crazy person. There’s nothing luxurious about it (lookin’ at you MAC and Lancome). It smells like Vaseline, and it surely does NOT taste like Dr. Pepper.
You’ll still catch me grabbing a Burt’s Bees vanilla from time to time at the checkout aisle. Which I know I won’t see again a month later.
So why do I keep going back?
A&D persists. It lives full-time in my closet and always comes out in the winter when my body and lips turn into the Sahara Desert. It follows me in a backpack when I travel, and hangs out on my nightstand on a cold winter night. It has never let me down and has become my tried-and-true.
🤓 What a Tube of Diaper Cream Taught Me About Growing Up
Age gets you like that sometimes.
One minute you’re young, free, and covered in glitter - and the next you’re applying diaper rash cream to your lips, holding a cup of coffee, and wearing slipper socks as you write your next blog.
It can be ironic, running a skincare studio, selling beautiful high-end plumpers, only to go home and reach for a tube of baby butt cream. But that’s the beauty of growing up.
You stop chasing trends, worrying about the aesthetic, and lean into what actually holds you together. You sit back, reminisce about those lip tubes that got away, and appreciate the steadiness and stability of that one you keep coming back to. That final true love type.
Ready to meet your lip-lubin’ true love? Come in — we’ll find your ride or die!
