Believe it or not, this nipple balm is the lip balm you’ve been looking for

All you chapped-lip people, listen up.

Name: Dr. Lipp Original Nipple Balm for Lips
Price: $25
What it does: Quenches your desperately parched lips
Available from: Mecca

PSA: I am a reformed lip balm addict. For most of my life, I have carried around with me a rolodex of lip balms – Chapstick, Carmex, Nivea, Burt’s Bees, Vaseline, Lucas Papaw, Lanolips. You name it, and I owned it. I even tried an array of much-lauded high-end balms, like Elizabeth Ardern’s Eight Hour Cream Lip Repair Balm, Kiehl’s Buttermask for Lips and By Terry’s Baume de Rose, to name a few.

I was (and still am) that friend you can always rely on when you find yourself at a party in the early hours of the morning with rapidly dehydrating lips and no balm in sight. My house could be burning down and I would probably still find time to grab a lip balm to take with me.

The reason for this is twofold; firstly, I am a product junkie, but secondly, I have the driest lips out of anyone I’ve ever met. I took Roaccutane for my very problematic skin when I was a teenager – a drug that dries you out so badly that my lips were bleeding and cracked throughout the duration of the treatment. My acne came and went, but Roaccutane left me with a particularly frustrating after effect; permanently thirsty lips. And not thirsty in that way, obviously.

The reason for this is that the majority of lip balms out there fail to penetrate the inner layer of your lips, instead, they sit on top and provide you with temporary hydration, but long term they make your lips dependent on constant reapplication if you want to retain that moisturised feeling. But a year or so ago, after trying thousands of frogs, I found the prince charming of lip balms. Only, it was originally intended for your nipples. Enter, Dr. Lipp Original Nipple Balm for Lips.

How it feels, smells, and looks

Dr. Lipp comes in a cute compact grey package with a screw-on lid. It’s 100 per cent medical grade lanolin, a substance that occurs naturally in sheep’s wool, and this stuff gets right into your lips and hydrates them from within. It’s thick and rich, which you might not be prepared for if you’re used to your bog-standard lip balm, but a little goes a long way, and you’ll find yourself reapplying lip balm far less than usual.

Scent wise, there isn’t much to report – it doesn’t have any fragrance or flavour, unlike a lot of lip balms, and if there is a smell it’s certainly not offensive or noticeable. It is a little on the greasy/sticky side, but not enough to put me, or the countless people I’ve turned onto this stuff, off it. The effects are just that good.

Why I like it

It sounds hyperbolic, but this lip balm changed my life. Pre Dr. Lipp, I was at my wit’s end, thinking my cracked lips and I were doomed to spend our lives together, like a wildly incompatible yet impossible to break up couple. But post-Dr. Lipp, the actual makeup of my lips has changed. I mean, I don’t know if that’s what’s happened, because I’m not a scientist, but all I know is that I only have to apply Dr. Lipp a few times a day, and my lips don’t peel and chap in the chronically painful way they used to.

It’s also multi-purpose, and if I love anything, it’s a multi-purpose product. This baby can be used, as Dr. Lipp suggests, on dry nipples, elbows, crusty cuticles, to condition eyelashes, and even as a gloss on your eyelids. Try putting a light layer of peach or lavender pressed shadow on your lids and patting a layer of Dr. Lipp on top and tell me it doesn’t look editorial.

I estimate that I have singlehandedly converted at least 15 people to this lip balm, and each of them has come back to me and said the same thing – that they’ve waved goodbye to their chapstick and pledged allegiance to the only balm that actually does the job. (This balm, obviously.)

Areas for improvement

While it’s on the pricey side for a lip balm, I can assure you that it’s more than worth it. I would still buy this stuff if it cost me an arm and a leg. Dr. Lipp is the drug dealer and nipple balm is my poison of choice, and that’s fine by me. The only thing to note, and something that might cause reservations for some, is that the thick formula can be a little greasy and can leave a mark on a glass if you take a sip while wearing it. But really, if a slightly dirty glass is the trade-off for a lifetime of well quenched, glossy lips, I’ll take it 100 times over. 

4.8/5

mecca.com.au