Hunting down the best lip balms is important: The skin on your lips is thinner than it is on the rest of your body, so it’s also the most prone to dryness and cracking. Threats to your lips come from everywhere: sunburn, windburn, cold and dry air, bacteria, cold sores, you name it. (It's a rough world out there for your kisser.) For all these reasons, you need a plan to keep that skin strong and smooth—and that solution comes packed into a tiny tube or tin.
A great lip balm should be chock-full of nourishing oils like sunflower, castor, or tea tree, and skin-smoothing butters like cocoa or shea. Highly concentrated balms prevent dryness and cuts from worsening, while preserving existing moisture and protecting lips from the daily assault of the outside world. Whether you’re treating chapped lips or preventing the next parching, we rounded up our favorite balms (after testing a ton of them), to help you ID the best lip balm for your specific needs.
The Best Lip Balms, According to GQ
The Best Lip Balm Overall: Aquaphor Lip Repair
It doesn’t matter if you spend your free time scanning subreddits or are a wee skin care newbie—if you’ve done even the scantest of research on lip care, chances are you’ve come across Aquaphor’s Lip Repair. Formulated with a moisturizing blend of vitamins, shea butter, and soothing chamomile, the lightweight ointment seals in moisture for lips that feel smooth all day (it’s also fragrance-free, making it great for for sensitive skin). The real draw point of this best-seller, though, might be the price—a 2-pack rings in at under $10. The grooming space is crowded with no shortage of buzzy upstarts, but Aquaphor’s no-frills balm continues to set the standard.
| Key Ingredients | Vitamins C, E and B5, Shea Butter, Chamomile Essence |
The Best Lip Balm for Overnight Recovery: Kiehl's Buttermask for Lips
If your lips are feeling particularly rough this winter, it’s time to call in the reinforcements, a.k.a. an ultra-moisturizing lip treatment specifically designed to soothe and repair while you catch those blissful Zs. We like Kiehl’s emollient-rich lip mask, which is packed with mango butter and softening coconut oil, because it goes on smooth, leaves a lightweight finish, and packs a hefty punch. Slather on before hitting the sack and wake up to lips so smooth you’ll feel like you're still dreaming.
| Key Ingredients | Mango Butter, Coconut Oil |
The Best Lip Balm for the Beach: Supergoop PLAY Lip Balm SPF 30
It’s no secret that we love Supergoop. The entire brand is built off the premise that everyone needs to wear more sunscreen, so it’s no surprise that their excellent PLAY lip balm is rated SPF 30. The liquid balm, a blend of shea butter and natural oils, is easy to apply thanks to a squeeze tip and angled applicator and feels lightweight and genuinely nourishing. It’s available in two subtle flavors, acai and mint.
| Key Ingredients | Shea Butter, Acai Extract, Sunflower Seed Oil |
The Best Lip Balm with SPF: Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm
Don't wait to find out the hard way: Your lips need SPF protection, too. Jack Black's excellent balm uses SPF 25 to shield your kisser from UV rays, and also delivers just the right amount of vitamin E and green tea, which further protects against skin-aging toxins.
| Key Ingredients | SPF 25, Green Tea, Vitamin E |
The Best All-Natural Lip Balm: Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Organic Lip Balm
One of our favorite Dr. Bronner's products is this diminutive-seeming beeswax balm, which uses organic oils to hydrate and soften the lips. Jojoba, avocado, and hemp deliver nourishment and moisture, while an extra sprig of peppermint finishes the job with a telltale tingle of freshness.
| Key Ingredients | Beeswax, Peppermint Oil, Jojoba Oil, Avocado Oil |
The Best Prescription-Grade Lip Balm: Burt's Bees Medicated Moisturizing Lip Balm
If you've got more than simply chapped lips—we're talking cold sores and fever blisters—then speed up the recovery process with this menthol- and eucalyptus-infused drugstore favorite. (It goes without saying that it works as a supercharged balm to standard-level dryness, too.)
| Key Ingredients | Eucalyptus Oil, Menthol, Shea Butter |
Best Classic Pack: Cardon Matte Lip Balm
Cardon’s simple lip balm forgoes the shine for a matte finish and comes in a traditional, easy-to-use tube. At $12 for a two-pack, your lips will get more moisture for your buck. There aren’t any overpowering fragrances here or greasy textures either–just straightforward matte balm that revives your old tired, chapped lips.
| Key Ingredients | Cactus extract, apple seed oil, ceramide |
Best Value: Harry’s Black Lip Balm
Whether you’re taming your beard, shaving, or showering, there’s a good chance your daily regimen includes one of Harry’s grooming products. But here’s a pro tip: Don’t skip out on its hydrating lip balm. Harry’s used meadowfoam oil to kick dryness to the curb, and the result left our lips feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, but never sticky or too glossy. The stick never left a cast of any kind during our tests, and its standard, slightly contoured tube design makes it quick and painless to apply when you’re on the go.
| Key Ingredients | Meadowfoam oil |
Best-Smelling Gel: Grown Alchemist Hydra-Restore Lip Balm
The minute you apply Grown Alchemist’s wildly hydrating Hydra-Restore balm, your lips feel like you just took a dip in the ocean. With nourishing ingredients like rosehip oil and shea butter, the lip balm also smells like a sweet treat of watermelon and vanilla. It’s on the glossier side of balms, and we wish it was easier to control how much of the gel glides out of the tube.
| Key Ingredients | Shea butter, rosehip oil |
Best Unscented Gel: Le Labo Unscented Lip Balm
For a brand that’s known best for how good its fragrances smell–sorry, you’ll have to pry our Santal from our cold, dead, great-smelling hands–who knew that its unscented lip balm would be just as worth adding to your cart? This soothing balm’s plant-based ingredients like shea butter and olive oil help relieve raw or cracked lips, while its lightweight gel texture is easy to pump out of the 15mL tube. But go easy: A small amount offers plenty of long-lasting coverage.
| Key Ingredients | Jojoba oil, shea butter, olive oil |
Best-Smelling Stick: Oak Essentials Conditioning Lip Balm
One of the best-smelling balms you can wear, Oak Essentials’ gluten-free conditioning stick smells like you’re standing in the middle of a forest or just waking up from a post-massage haze thanks to its tea tree and bergamot scent. It feels clean and smooth to wear, and its hydrating ingredients like shea butter and safflower seed oil give your lips a long-overdue boost. If you want more out of your classic tube of lip balm, this is the only one you’ll need in your kit.
| Key Ingredients | Argan oil, shea butter, safflower seed oil |
More Lip Balms We Love
Malin + Goetz
Mojito Lip Balm
Malin+Goetz's mojito-scented, gel-based balm uses fatty acids to soften and plump the lips on contact, while shielding them from further strain. It's in a squeeze tube, instead of a roll-on stick, so it's easy to share some with anyone you're smooching. (Logistically speaking, this shouldn't have concerned you in the first place, but still.) It's also easier to distribute on skin cuts or hang nails, which might give you the best-smelling cuticles this side of the Mississippi.
Aesop
Cedar & Citrus Lip Salve
What better way to treat your lips to a little much needed R&R than with a salve reliably employed at the swankiest of spas? The Aussie skin care whizzes at Aesop employ a nourishing blend of castor seed oil and refreshing citrus, which allows their all-natural formula to lather on like a top-shelf gel moisturizer.
O'Keeffe's
Lip Repair SPF 35 Lip Balm Stick
Between the sun and wind exposure at high altitudes (or even on standard-fare, low-elevation locales), you need a lip balm that can shield you from the gnarliest elements. O'Keeffe's dry skin- busting balm is made for the guy who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, but with a whopping SPF 35 added to the mix, you can keep your paws nice and smooth—and mercifully UV-damage free.
Rosebud Perfume Co.
Rosebud Salve
Lips dry, hands dry, body dry all over? You can buy a targeted balm to slather on or stock up on this one-for-all best-seller. Rich in smoothing oils that’ll lock in moisture while unlocking an ungodly glow, a tin of Rosebud Salve will leave you feeling ultra-soft—sans the greasy feel. Feel free to apply with impunity; you can touch up dry spots, wherever, whenever, to thwart surprise cracks in the dead of winter.
What to Look For In a Lip Balm
When it comes to selecting lip balm, Dr. Bruce A. Brod, a Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, advises his patients to seek those that have fewer ingredients. “Too many ingredients and especially flavorings and other botanical type ingredients increase the risk of patients becoming allergic to one of those, causing an allergic contact dermatitis around the lips,” says Brod, who offered his expertise here but did not make any product recommendations for this story. Effective lip balm ingredients that help repair damaged skin and seal-in moisture, he says, include petroleum jelly, shea butter, ceramides, and dimethicone. In terms of application, Dr. Brod says lip balm should be applied every one to two hours, including before bed. If you find that your lips are persistently dry, cracked, and red, he advises seeking care from a dermatologist.
How We Tested
To determine the best lip balms you can buy, we reached out to dermatologists to help us determine the key ingredients to look out for, along with any specific recommendations for versatile balms. From there, we tested several lip balms ourselves over the course of several weeks to help soothe our dry, chapped lips. We considered their packaging and design, plus how easy they were to apply, along with things like fragrance, ingredients, and texture before coming up with our worthwhile picks.