I’m going to start with the least glamorous thing I learned while developing a lip treatment: the ingredient getting all the attention on the front of the box may not be the most important ingredient in the formula.
I know. Not nearly as fun as peptides or vitamin C or whatever ingredient is currently having its moment.
But the majority of what’s actually inside a lip treatment is the base. It’s what carries all those impressive-sounding active ingredients, helps protect them and ultimately determines a lot about how the product feels and performs on your lips.
And once we started looking into lip bases, things got surprisingly interesting.
There are essentially three major categories: animal-based, plant-based and petrolatum. Each has benefits. Each has drawbacks. And if you’re spending money on a treatment-level lip product, it’s worth knowing what you’re actually buying.
Animal-Based: The Originals
Beeswax. Lanolin. Tallow. Even emu oil.
These ingredients have been used in skincare forever, and there’s something inherently appealing about them. They feel traditional. Natural. Heritage-y. I can practically picture the beautiful amber jar already.
But natural doesn’t automatically mean non-irritating.
Lanolin, which comes from sheep’s wool, is a documented contact allergen for some people and has long appeared in dermatology patch-testing data. Beeswax itself has a much lower allergy risk, but traces of other bee products, including pollen and propolis, can cause reactions in sensitive people.
There’s another consideration that I hadn’t really thought about before we started formulating: these ingredients aren’t neutral.
Animal-based waxes have their own scent, color, texture and stability characteristics. Put an active ingredient into a lanolin-heavy base, for example, and the base itself affects the finished formula.
Not necessarily bad. Just something a good formulator has to consider.
Plant-Based: Natural Doesn’t Mean Simple
This is probably the category most of us recognize.
Shea butter. Cocoa butter. Coconut oil. Jojoba. Sunflower. Rosehip. Candelilla wax.
There are some absolutely beautiful plant-based lip products, and we actually use several plant-derived ingredients in Lip TX. But using plant ingredients and relying on plant oils as the primary base are two different things.
The first consideration is sensitivity. Shea comes from a tree nut. Coconut allergies exist. Seed oils can have their own sensitivity profiles. Again, none of that makes these ingredients inherently bad—it just means “plant-based” doesn’t automatically translate to “everyone’s skin will love it.”
The bigger issue for a treatment product is stability.
Plant oils oxidize.
That’s just chemistry. Over time, exposure to oxygen, heat and light can cause oils to deteriorate. And if that oil is responsible for carrying your expensive antioxidants and other actives, suddenly the stability of the base becomes pretty important.
Which leads to something else I had never considered: your formula is only as good as its ability to keep its ingredients working.
Vitamin C can be sensitive to heat, air and light. So can antioxidants such as astaxanthin and tocopherol. You can put an incredible list of ingredients on the side of a box, but if the formula doesn’t protect them properly through the life of the product, that list becomes a lot less impressive.
And this is where we arrive at the ingredient nobody is bragging about on Instagram.
Petrolatum: Not Sexy. Really Good at Its Job.
Petrolatum has been used in dermatology for more than 150 years and is recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology for dry, chapped lips.
It also has possibly the worst marketing department in beauty.
There is no exotic harvesting story. It isn’t grown on a remote island. Nobody is going to make a TikTok about discovering an ancient petrolatum ritual.
It just works.
Petrolatum is an occlusive, which means it creates a barrier over the skin that dramatically reduces water loss. Published dermatology research has reported reductions in transepidermal water loss of up to 98%.
For lips—which don’t have the same natural oil-producing protection as much of the rest of our skin—that matters.
It’s also considered very low risk for sensitization when highly refined USP-grade white petrolatum is used.
And then there’s the reason that really mattered when we were developing Lip TX: stability.
Petrolatum is chemically stable. It doesn’t oxidize like plant oils can, which makes it an excellent environment for protecting the ingredients suspended within it.
Translation: if you’re going to spend the money to formulate with ingredients like astaxanthin, fucoxanthin, vitamin C and vitamin E, you probably want them to still be doing their jobs when someone gets to the bottom of the tube.
Suddenly, petrolatum started looking a lot more interesting.
The Ingredient You’re Not Seeing on the Front of the Box
Walk through any beauty department and look at the front of the lip products.
Peptides.
Ceramides.
Hyaluronic acid.
Marine complexes.
Vitamin C.
Those are the ingredients we market because they’re the ingredients people recognize.
What you usually don’t see advertised is the ingredient making up most of what’s inside.
And that’s why the base matters.
It can influence how the product feels, how well it reduces moisture loss, how sensitive lips tolerate it and whether the active ingredients remain stable throughout the life of the product.
You can have the world’s most impressive ingredient list. If the formula carrying those ingredients isn’t doing its job, what’s the point?
So, What Did We Choose for Apposé Lip TX?
Petrolatum.
And I realize that may be considerably less exciting than saying we discovered a rare botanical growing on the side of a mountain in France.
But we weren’t trying to formulate the ingredient list that sounded the best.
We wanted to formulate a lip treatment that worked.
Apposé Lip TX uses a petrolatum base alongside ingredients including astaxanthin, fucoxanthin, stable vitamin C and skin-identical lipids. The base helps create the protective barrier we wanted while providing a stable environment for the ingredients we chose to put into it.
It’s also part of what gives Lip TX the cushioned, non-sticky feel we wanted.
Because if my hair is going to stick to my lips every time the wind blows, I’m not going to use it.
And the best formula in the world doesn’t matter very much if it stays in the drawer.
A Few Questions We Had Too
Isn’t petrolatum bad for the environment?
This one deserves a little nuance.
Cosmetic and pharmaceutical petrolatum is a highly refined material with a long-established supply chain. There is absolutely a larger and important environmental conversation around petroleum and fossil fuels. That’s different, however, from evaluating the safety and performance of USP-grade petrolatum as a skincare ingredient.
For Lip TX, we looked at the ingredient itself: its safety history, dermatology credentials, stability and ability to protect the rest of the formula.
Does petrolatum clog pores?
Highly refined petrolatum is considered non-comedogenic in the dermatology literature. It primarily works by sitting on the surface of the skin and creating an occlusive barrier rather than penetrating deeply into it.
And on the lips, that surface barrier is exactly what we’re looking for.
But What About Clean Beauty?
Ah, “clean.”
The problem is that there isn’t one regulated definition of clean beauty. Different retailers and brands have created different standards, which means an ingredient can be considered “clean” under one framework and excluded under another.
Our approach at Apposé is a little less complicated.
Does the ingredient work? Is it appropriate for the formula? Is there good evidence behind it? Does it help us create a better product?
If the answer is yes, we’re much more interested in that than whether the ingredient happens to be fashionable this month.
Trends change.
Good formulation shouldn’t have to.
Apposé Lip TX. Arrive Ready.
Sources
https://www.contactderm.org
https://www.aad.org/public/everyday-care/skin-care-basics/dry/heal-dry-chapped-lips
https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(23)01107-6/abstrachttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4885180/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4885180/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S009167491501194X
https://shopappose.com/products/appose-liptx