Once it starts to get colder, my lips typically get dry and cracked fairly quickly.
When I first looked for a lip balm in my local drugstore, every single one was not vegan.
There were 3 main issues that I found:
- Beeswax (clearly not vegan)
- Lanolin (from sheep’s wool, not vegan).
- Some colorings are tested on animals
Basically, 90% of lip balm out there is not cruelty-free.
Lip Balm Brands That Are NOT Vegan Friendly
These popular brands (and many more) are not vegan:
- Burt’s Bees
- Jack Black
- ChapStick
- EOS
- Nivea
- Blistex
I went to Whole Foods and found one balm that was vegan, but I wanted more options.
So I dug deeper and did a lot of research to find the best cruelty-free vegan lip balms.
These are easily available online, are high quality, and don’t have some questionable ingredients like petroleum that you might want to avoid.
Let’s look at the results…
The 5 Best Cruelty-Free Vegan Lip Balms
After looking at dozens of options, these were the top 5 that I could find.
They’re all good in my opinion.
There’s a few options for different prices, convenience, and ingredient preferences.
One of the biggest things missing from vegan lip balms are products with SPF. I only found one that I’d consider a “good” option.
Here’s a summary table of the highlights, but I’ve gone into more detail below.
| Lip Balm | Price per stick | Main ingredients | Rating (/5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eco Lips | $ | Sunflower seed oil, candelilla wax, cocoa butter, coconut oil | 4.7 |
| Hurraw | $$$ | Nut/Seed butters and oils | 4.5 |
| Pure + Simple | $ | Avocado butter, jojoba oil, castor oil | 4.5 |
| Pacifica | $$ | Coconut oil, candelilla wax, soy bean wax, avocado oil | 4.2 |
| Sun Bum SPF30 | $ | Avobenzone, homosalate, octinoxate | 4 |
1. Eco Lips
Flavors: Lemon-Lime, Superfruit, Sweet Mint
Eco Lips is the best overall to me.
Pros:
- As cheap as you’ll find for vegan lip balm.
- Smells great.
- Lasts a long time.
- All organic and fair trade (when applicable).
The only real potential con, depending on what you’re looking for is that there’s no sun protection. But very few vegan options have SPF.
This lip balm combines several types of oils for different purposes.
The cocoa butter and coconut oil are both mainly to help soften lips.
Here’s the full ingredient list:
Sunflower seed oil, candelilla wax, cocoa butter, coconut oil, peppermint oil, spearmint oil, vitamin E, rosemary leaf extract, calendula flower extract, stevia
Everything is organic, I just didn’t want to type it out for each ingredient.
A pretty short and simple list, and all ingredients are vegan, gluten, and cruelty free. Candelilla wax is a popular beeswax alternative for chap sticks that’s plant-based.
2. Hurraw Lip Balm
Flavors: Echium Raspberry (Tinted), Moon, SPF15 Sun, Unscented, Black Cherry (Tinted), Coconut, Vanilla, Almond, Mint, Orange, Green Tea, Earl Grey, Chai Spice, Grapefruit, Licorice, Root Beer, Lemon, Lime, Coffee, Chocolate, Kapha, Pitta, Vata, Baobab Banana or Papaya Pineapple
Hurraw is a pretty popular vegan option.
Pros:
- Tons of flavors (some are tough to find though)
- Good texture
- Smells reasonably good
- Heals and soften lips well.
The only real cons are the price and that it’s quite thick, almost comparable to vaseline.
For women (or men I guess) looking for lip balm that colors their lips, the colored flavored do leave some tint, but it’s pretty light and not very noticeable.
Again, no SPF.
To the product itself, it’s completely made in the United States and organic, and here’s the full ingredients list:
Safflower seed oil, sweet almond oil, candelilla wax, cacao seed butter, coconut oil, castor seed oil, jojoba seed oil, fruit oil, natural flavor, tocopherol (vitamin E)
It’s a pretty typical ingredients list for a high quality vegan lip balm, nothing really stands out to me.
It’s both certified organic, and also registered by the Vegan Society.
3. Pure + Simple
Flavors: Key Lime, Lavender, Rose, Tuscan Orange, and Peppermint
There’s a lot I liked about Pure + Simple, and it’s tied for second place here.
Pros:
- Good price.
- Smells really good.
- Great texture (not too thick, or too oily).
It’s made in America in a vegan certified facility. They don’t do any animal testing of any kind of course.
This is not organic, if that’s important to you.
Let’s look at the full ingredients list:
Avocado oil, jojoba oil, castor oil, candelilla wax, tocopherol (vitamin E), essential oil blend (varies based on flavor).
Of note, there’s no coconut oil in this lip balm. There aren’t many good vegan lip balms without coconut oil, and if it’s a big deal to you (because of smell or allergies), this should be your best option.
There’s also not synthetic fragrances, parabens, or petrochemicals.
4. Pacifica
Flavors: Coconut Nectar, Sugared Fig, Blood Orange, Guava Berry, Vanilla Hibiscus and Coconut Cherry
This is a “Sheer-colored” lip balm that seems to be marketed mostly towards women.
But it’s still a good option that I came across and deserves to be on this list.
Pros:
- Smells great.
- Good texture that moisturizes lips.
- Lasts pretty long per application.
As every other product on this page is, Pacifica is 100% vegan & cruelty-free.
Let’s look at the ingredients:
Coconut oil, candelilla wax, soy bean wax, avocado oil, cocoa butter, tocopherol (vitamin E), rosemary extract, all natural color
It’s the shortest ingredient list of any of these lip balms.
There’s clearly no parabens of petroleum products in it.
5. Sun Bum
Last but not least is the only “good” option I could find with SPF.
The taste isn’t amazing, but the texture and smell are pretty good.
It’s on the thin side, so expect to reapply it fairly often.
Most importantly, it’s SPF 30.
It’s 100% vegan of course and has no petrochemicals, but it does have a lot of chemicals.
Here’s the ingredient list:
Avobenzone 2.00%, Homosalate 15.00%, Octinoxate 7.50%, Octisalate 5.00%, Adiphic Acid / Diglycol Crosspolymer, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Ascorbic Acid, BHT, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Caprylic / Capric Triglyceride, Cetyl Alcohol, Citrus Grandis (Grapefruit) Fruit Extract, Citrus Medica Limonum (Lemon) Fruit Extract, Cyclohexasiloxane, Cyclopentasiloxane, Diisobutyl Adipate, Dimethicone, Equisetum Arvense Extract, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Fragrance, Ginkgo Biloba Leaf Extract, Hydrate Silica, Isostearyl Linoleate, Macrocystis Pyritera Extract, Mineral Oil Ozokerite, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, PEG-8, Polysorbate 80, Propylene Glycol, Punica Granatum Extract, Retinyl Palmitate, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Extract, Salix Alba (Willow) Bark Extract, Salvia Officinalis (Sage) Extract, Sodium Saccharin, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Tocopheryl Acetate
Honestly I don’t even know what most of that stuff is, but the product is certified vegan.
Despite not being clearly mentioned on some product pages, Sun Bum’s website clearly states that their products are also cruelty free.
So there we go, 5 vegan lip balm options, all good options to me. Pick the one you like the look of best, or fits your budget. I don’t think you can go wrong.
