Blistex has a wide range of products, but their medicated lip balm is probably the most popular.
It lasts a long time, does its job well, and even has SPF 15 protection.
But Blistex lip balm is certainly not vegan.
Ingredients in Blistex
There’s a long list of ingredients in Blistex, but I’m just going to outline the ones that a vegan would care about or might not recognize:
- Beeswax – Beeswax comes from bees as you’d expect. Since it’s an animal product, it’s not vegan-friendly.
- Lanolin – Derived from the oil from sheep’s wool. Technically it’s possible to obtain it without hurting sheep, but in reality it’s rarely obtained ethically and there are good reasons why wool and wool products like lanolin are not vegan.
- Camphor – A waxy substance found in camphor trees, it is vegan-friendly.
- Cetyl alcohol – Used to be derived from sperm whales, but now it’s made from palm oil. Whether or not vegans should use palm oil products is actually pretty controversial, but most vegans would say that palm is vegan-friendly.
- Cetyl palmitate – Similar to cetyl acohol, cetyl palmitate was originally extracted from whales, but isn’t any longer.
- Candelilla wax – One of the best vegan substitutes for beeswax, it’s too bad this chapstick contains both types of wax.
- Flavor – I’m honestly not too sure what “flavor” means in this context. My assumption would be that it contains “natural flavor” ingredients, which may or may not be vegan.
- Parafin – A colorless wax derived from petroleum, so while it’s not the most eco-friendly, it is a vegan ingredient.
- Red 6 Lake – An artificial color, which is controversial among vegans because of animal testing concerns. You can read more about why some vegans avoid food colorings.
Some vegans have less of an issue with animal products from insects, but the more you read about bees, they’re quite exploited, which is why most don’t consider beeswax and honey to be vegan.
It’s pretty clear that Blistex lip balm is not considered vegan, just from a brief snapshot of the ingredients. You’ll find similar issues in other popular lip balms like Carmex, which isn’t vegan because it also has beeswax and lanolin.
Blistex Lip Balm Alternatives
I put together a detailed guide of the best vegan and cruelty-free lip balms that I’d recommend you take a look at.
These usually use a blend of other oils and waxes like candelilla wax, sunflower seed oil, and coconut oil.
It’s definitely possible to make your own lip balm if you’re good with crafts and those sorts of things, but it is quite a bit of work.
