reply to post by JekyllHyde
To anyone who believes that the lip balm conspiracy is a joke, I CHALLENGE THEM: don't use ANYTHING on your lips for an entire week. No gloss, no
balm, no lipstick, NOTHING. You probably won't be able to do it, because your lips will flake, crack, even bleed. That's what my friends and I
experienced, at least. The extreme discomfort subsided only after about a couple embarrassing months of being off the stuff (I constantly had to tell
people why I looked like Dr. Frankenlips, and of course everyone thought I was crazy). I'm glad to say that I've been free of the addiction for over
a year. I still use "lip stain" when I go out, but I make sure that it has NO moisturizers in it. NARS makes a really good, pigment-only stain. When
the weather gets dry, I use a little bit of coconut oil or olive oil, which emulates skin oil (i.e., isn't waxy).
One thing: Petroleum has little to do with it. Petroleum is the worst, but all lip-moisturizers are BAD. Burt's Bees is the worst non-petroleum
product... It contains peppermint oil, which feels really good on your lips, but which actually is a drying agent. So you use some for that soothing
sensation, and you end up needing it more and more often, and hence you shell out big bucks... $1-$2 at a time!
The cavemen didn't need lip balm, even in the winter, and neither should we.
I use Norwegian Formula, spf 20....its quite good actually. 
