Product Review: Carmex vs. Prairie Dawn Natural Lip Balm

Dammit! I'm hideous again! I have another cold sore!

As sufferers know, sometimes the little buggers come one after another. This one is on the other side of my mouth. I HATE when this happens. I only get cold sores on the left side of my mouth, and this monster tag along is bigger than that last one. I HATE when this happens.

So, since last time (less than a month ago!) I gave you information on cold sores and the treatment I like the best. This time, I'll discuss what to do with the rest of your lips.

Whenever you have a cold sore, it's tricky to keep the rest of your lips moist. You want to lick them because they feel misshapen and dry, so you end up drying them out even more. Wetting your lips and the cold sore dries it out and makes the sore more likely to crack and take longer to heal. So the important thing is to use a lip balm. I tend to choose between two kinds of balm: a balm that tastes bad or a balm that tastes good.

My choice for lip balm that tastes bad is Carmex. Introduced in 1937, it contains methol and phenol to disinfect and cocoa butter to moisturize the lips. Ounce for ounce, I find it works better at softening lips over every other lip balm. The active ingredients are camphor, menthol, phenol, and salicylic acid.

Carmex works well to keep the whole lip soft when the cold sore is healing and doesn't interfere with other treatments. It's not tested on animals, and it works really well to plump your lips while they heal. Best of all, it has no expiration date. I keep a jar marked "CS" just for when I have a cold sore, so I don't mix it up with other jars.

The taste is... well... camphor. It is available in other flavours (strawberry, mint and cherry), but I find that the mediciney taste is still noticeable. I don't mind it so much, but I wouldn't call it good tasting.

Now, for tasty lip balm that works well, I use Prairie Dawn Natural Lip Balm. Listen to this ingredient list:

• Jojoba oil (Organic virgin cold pressed & unrefined from the Sonoran Desert in Arizona)
• Virgin cold pressed castor seed oil
• Alberta beeswax
• Unrefined wheat germ oil
• Vegetable glycerin
• Virgin unrefined coconut oil extracted from the milk of the coconut
• Avocado oil
• Pure essential oils

This lip balm comes in four flavours:

• Sweet Orange
• Lime
• Peppermint
• Black Licorice

Prairie Dawn is really delicious, and it's extra moisturizing. It feels silky and rich on your lips, and because it uses essential oils to flavour, the flavour is completely realistic. Lime tastes like lime, and licorice tastes like licorice. It leaves a nice sheen that isn't too glossy, but lasts for a long time.

So when your lips are really feeling yucky, treat them to something that makes them feel good and fixes them.