This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Maryland chapter.
There’s a reason stores keep lip balms in all shapes and sizes stocked by the registers. It’s so easy to impulsively grab and buy one at the last second, we’ve all been guilty of it. Before you know it, they’re stockpiled in your room, your purse and your car. It seems impossible to finish all those lip balms when you’re only using them on your lips. With these alternate uses for your lip balm, you can use them before you lose them.
- Most lip balms are made with a low level SPF. While you probably don’t want to lather it all over your back, lip balms make the perfect sunscreen for your face. Instead of inhaling the spray-on types, or looking like a lifeguard with a white streak down your nose, dab a little lip balm on your lips, cheeks and tops of your ears to keep the worst of the sun away.
- Lip balm heals small cuts on our lips, making them smooth and healthy. It can do the same for the skin anywhere else on the body. It works especially well with paper cuts. The next time you feel the familiar sting on your finger, dab lip balm on the cut. It will pull the skin closed and speed up the healing process.
- There are almost no downsides to glitter eye shadow, until it inevitably betrays you and falls into your eye. Luckily, you can use lip balm to hold every last sparkle in place. It works as a much more reliable – not to mention cheaper – eye makeup primer. Plus, you’re likely already carrying it in your purse, so there’s no need to carry around another beauty product on girls’ night out.
- For those like me who dye their hair at least twice a year, you know the struggle of keeping dye off your head and neck and ears. Vaseline is an option but not necessarily something many of us have around the house – or dorm room for that matter. Lip balm does the job just as well if not better, since it’s so much easier to apply. Now you don’t have to worry about staining your forehead red or brown or purple just because you wanted your hair to be that color.
- Lip balm can help your hair in other ways too. In the eighties hairspray was the big must-have. Whether it was a fear of hurting the environment with nauseating fumes, or the inconvenience of carrying it around in a purse, hair spray became a less popular commodity. Nowadays, all you need is lip balm to tame those few pesky fly-aways that just wont stay in place. You can even get it past airport security better than any aerosol can.
Hopefully now you’ll think twice before throwing out that half used lip balm!