The bank holds no lip balm product photography, so the hero is the weather instead: wind, cold and a coast. The cards run text-first, the panels carrying the evidence, and the gap is admitted in the honesty section.
The short version. A lip balm is the smallest purchase on the grooming shelf and the one whose record splits clean in two. Half this field is drugs, sold with Drug Facts panels that dose their actives in print; half is cosmetics, sold with ingredient lists that dose nothing. Graded on the published record only, the Aquaphor SPF 30 stick wins at 89, a complete panel at the floor with no scent system at all. Of the four sticks that print an SPF number, two reach the skincare Decoder’s floor of 30, and the two that fall short charge $40.00 an ounce and $7.48 an ounce for the shortfall, so price predicts nothing. Of the two medicated names, one doses camphor, menthol and phenol on its panel and the other prints three current labels that between them dose the trio once. And the flavour system, the thing this product is actually sold as, appears on five of eight records as exactly one word.
First, the decision: what a lip balm is allowed to claim
A lip balm that prints an SPF number, a skin-protectant claim or a medicated claim is an over-the-counter drug in the United States, and the law makes it publish a Drug Facts panel: actives named, purposes named, percentages printed. A lip balm that makes none of those claims is a cosmetic, and the law asks only for an ingredient list in descending order, with no quantities anywhere. That divide is this shelf’s governing fact, the same one the deodorant Card (No. 65) and the sunscreen Card (No. 68) were built on, and it decides what can be graded. On a drug panel, the desk can grade a dose. On a cosmetic list, the desk can grade a position. Neither lets the desk grade whether the product works, and this page asserts no efficacy of its own, about any of the eight.
The species are separated in print and graded as themselves. The SPF drugs: the Aquaphor stick, the Sun Bum stick, the Jack Black tube and the Carmex stick. The protectant and medicated drugs: the CeraVe tube, dosed on petrolatum alone, and the Blistex stick, dosed on the analgesic trio. The plain cosmetic: the Vaseline stick. The tinted cosmetic: the Burt’s Bees stick. On the tint, the ruling, printed before the cards: the tint species is ruled in, because the field’s tinted record publishes its colour system as ingredients, pigments named by CI number under a may-contain block. A tint that printed only a shade name would have been ruled out, the way a balm that prints only a flavour name is treated in the flavour finding below. Formats are graded as themselves too: six sticks and two squeeze tubes, and value is graded per ounce and per stick both, because this shelf’s sizes cluster between 0.15 and 0.35 ounces and per-ounce arithmetic alone misreads a $1.46 stick against a $10 tube.
The SPF column, against the floor of 30
The skincare Decoder’s floor is SPF 30, and the Grooming Take No. 3 argued what an under-floor number costs on a face moisturizer. At stick scale the arithmetic is smaller and the shape is the same. Four of the eight records print an SPF number. Two reach the floor: the Aquaphor stick at SPF 30, four filters dosed to a 25.5% load, and the Sun Bum stick at SPF 30, four filters at 26%, water resistant 80 minutes printed. Two fall short. The Jack Black tube prints SPF 25, five points under, and charges $40.00 an ounce for it, the steepest price in the field, on a panel that is otherwise complete and honest, petrolatum dosed at 40.2% included. The Carmex stick prints SPF 15, half the floor, and charges $7.48 an ounce in its four-pack, the cheapest ounce in the field. The pair is the finding: the shortfall is sold at both ends of the shelf, at $40 an ounce with optimum sun protection in the shelf copy, and at $1.12 a stick with the number printed small. Price does not predict the SPF, and the SPF does not predict the price. The four balms that print no SPF at all, CeraVe, Blistex, Vaseline and the tint, are not charged with the floor; they never claimed the column, and each is graded inside its own species.
The flavour column: the product’s identity, in one word
A lip balm is the one grooming product whose scent system is its identity: men buy the coconut one, the mint one, the grapefruit one. So the desk read the flavour column the way it reads a composition line. On five of the eight records, a fragrance, flavor or aroma entry appears in the published list: fragrance sixth of 24 inactives on the Blistex stick, fragrance mid-list on the Sun Bum panel, Flavor seventh of 14 on the Jack Black tube, aroma (flavour) seventh of 21 on the Burt’s Bees tint, flavor last but one on the Carmex stick. On none of the eight is the flavour system itemised. It is one word wherever it appears, at every price, from $1.46 a stick to $40 an ounce. Two products are sold under flavour or scent names outright: the Sun Bum stick, whose six flavour labels, Banana, Pineapple, Pomegranate, Watermelon, Coconut and Key Lime, are separate regulatory labels printed over one identical panel, so the difference between them lives entirely inside that one word; and the Jack Black tube, sold in scent-named variants on the same SPF 25 panel. The honest end of the column is an absence, printed two ways. Aquaphor and CeraVe print Fragrance Free on the pack and their lists make it true: no scent system exists to name. The Vaseline stick prints no fragrance entry and makes no claim about it, which the desk also counts as a record. What no maker on this shelf does is print the flavour the way Blistex prints its medicine, as named ingredients with the scent’s own roll-call. The oils around the word are sometimes itemised, eucalyptus and clove on the Blistex list, jasmine and cananga waxes on the tint. The flavour itself never is.
The medicated column, dosed once in two names
Two of the eight records are sold as medicated, and medicated is a drug word: it promises external analgesics, and a drug panel can print their doses. The Blistex Lip Medex stick does. Camphor 1.0%, menthol 1.0% and phenol 0.54%, all three labelled external analgesic, beside petrolatum 42% as lip protectant, with directions that cap use at three to four times a day. That is the complete medicated record, and it costs $1.46 a stick. Under the Carmex Classic Medicated name, three current labels tell three different stories. The jar’s label doses camphor 1.7% and petrolatum 45.3%. The current Triple Force labels dose nothing but white petrolatum at 41.25%, with camphor, menthol, salicylic acid and phenol all present in the inactive list, undosed. And the stick, the form this page grades, prints octinoxate 7.5%, oxybenzone 4.0% and white petrolatum 35% as its actives, an SPF 15 sunscreen panel, with the same four names again undosed in its inactives and flavor at the tail. Counted across the name: the medicated trio is dosed once in three labels, camphor on the jar, and menthol and phenol are dosed nowhere under it. Fever-blister and cold-sore language appears on sibling labels in both houses; where it appears it is the makers’ regulated claim, graded as a claim, and the desk repeats none of it as its own. The conviction is narrower and it is enough: on the stick a man actually buys under the word Medicated, the medication has no numbers.
How the scores work
Every balm is scored out of 100 on its published record, under the same basis the grooming Cards have used since the moisturizer Card, adapted to the stick: the active record as published, 30 (what the panel or list prints as the product’s working record, dosed actives where the product is a drug, the published list and its positions where it is a cosmetic); formulation honesty, 20 (whether the full record is published, and whether the printed absences and systems match it); claim discipline, 20 (names, numbers and shelf copy graded as claims, kept inside what the record supports); value, 15 (graded per ounce and per stick both, the till price and both unit prices printed on every card, because this shelf’s sizes cluster tightly and either figure alone misreads the class); and format and species clarity, 15 (whether a reader can tell what species of product this is, and in what form, from its own record). Nothing here is a use test. The desk opened no tube and wore no balm. A high score means the published record is strong; it is not a promise about your lips.
Seven ranked, and the one sent home
Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick + Sunscreen, SPF 30
The winner is the balm that treats its stick like a drug and its buyer like a reader. The panel doses four filters, avobenzone 3%, homosalate 9%, octisalate 4.5% and octocrylene 9%, a 25.5% load that reaches the Decoder’s floor of 30 exactly, and the 14 inactives are all named, shea butter and the waxes in their seats. There is no scent system anywhere in it, which makes the Fragrance Free and Paraben Free lines on the carton the rare claims that need no asterisk: the published record makes both exactly true. The deductions are small and printed. The dermatologist-recommended line is a survey claim and is graded as one. And the label prints no water-resistance claim, its directions telling the user to use a water resistant sunscreen if swimming or sweating: an honest absence, where half the shelf would have implied the claim instead. Mid-field money, $3.50 a stick, for the field’s most complete small panel.
$6.99 for the 2-pack of 0.17 oz sticks at Target ($3.50 a stick, $20.59 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $6.99 at Target| Active record, as published | 27 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 19 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 18 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 11 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 14 / 15 |
CeraVe Healing Lip Balm
The protectant species done properly: one active, petrolatum, dosed at 49.5% on a full Drug Facts panel, and behind it the fullest inactive list on the shelf, the maker’s own F.I.L. running 26 items, ceramide NP, AP and EOP seated at sixth, seventh and eighth of it, sodium hyaluronate ninth, panthenol near the tail, every position published to the formula code. Fragrance-free and lanolin-free are printed and true. It claims no SPF and is charged with none; what it claims is a barrier, and the barrier is numbered. The claims column takes the dock: the 24-hour hydration line and the healing language are graded as claims, and a tube that is half petrolatum described in weightless terms is copy the desk notes rather than repeats. The panel underneath needs no such help. At $7.99 the tube is the largest single purchase in the field, which the per-stick figure states plainly.
$7.99 for the 0.35 oz tube at Target ($22.83 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $7.99 at Target| Active record, as published | 26 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 19 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 16 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 11 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Blistex Lip Medex (stick)
This is what the word medicated looks like when it is kept. Camphor 1.0%, menthol 1.0% and phenol 0.54%, all three dosed and labelled external analgesic, beside petrolatum 42% as lip protectant: the only panel in the field that numbers the whole medicated story it sells, with directions that cap application at three to four times a day. Quickly cools and comforts is the regulated sensation claim of such a panel and is graded as a claim. The one real dock is the scent: the 24 inactives are published in full, but the flavour system sits in them as a single word, fragrance, sixth on the list, where the jar sibling prints flavors and fragrances as two entries, and the stick itemises only its eucalyptus and clove oils around the word. The jar under the same name runs a different panel, petrolatum at 59.14%, graded nowhere here and flagged in the honesty section. At $1.46 a stick this is the value benchmark every other card is read against.
$4.39 for the 3-pack of 0.15 oz sticks at iHerb ($1.46 a stick, $9.76 an ounce); a single stick lists at $1.47 at Walmart (October 2026)
Buy · $4.39 at iHerb| Active record, as published | 26 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 15 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 15 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 14 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Sun Bum Sunscreen Lip Balm, SPF 30
The panel is genuinely good: avobenzone 3%, homosalate 10%, octisalate 5% and octocrylene 8%, a 26% filter load at the floor of 30, water resistant (80 minutes) printed in minutes, and the full inactive list published, some 40 items on the stick rendering, botanicals and all. The product wrapped around the panel is a flavour shop. Six flavour names, Banana, Pineapple, Pomegranate, Watermelon, Coconut and Key Lime, each with its own regulatory label, ride on one identical formula, and the only thing that changes between them appears in the inactive list once, as the word fragrance, mid-list, unitemised. The choice between the six is a scent choice, and the record, read closely, says exactly that and nothing more. Honest till money at $3.49 a stick; the $23.27 ounce is the quiet part.
$3.49 for the 0.15 oz stick at Target ($23.27 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $3.49 at Target| Active record, as published | 24 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 16 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 13 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 12 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Vaseline Lip Therapy Stick, Original
The plain cosmetic, graded as one. There is no panel and no dose to print, so the desk graded the list, and the list has a sense of humour: the published 17 items run octyldodecanol first, then microcrystalline wax, a caprylic triglyceride, castor oil and cetyl palmitate, and the house named for petrolatum seats petrolatum sixth, with shea butter and the waxes behind it. It is a wax stick carrying the jelly rather than the jelly in a stick, and the clinically proven shelf language above it is graded as the claim it is. What redeems the record is its plainness: the list is short, published in full, and carries no fragrance entry and no flavour name, unscented in fact as well as in copy. At $1.50 a stick and $9.34 an ounce it is the cheapest stick and the cheapest ounce in the field.
$2.99 for the 2-pack of 0.16 oz sticks at Target ($1.50 a stick, $9.34 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $2.99 at Target| Active record, as published | 18 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 16 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 13 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 14 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 12 / 15 |
Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm (Rose)
The tint species, ruled in on this page because of records like this one. The colour is not a name; it is a printed system: titanium dioxide CI 77891, carmine CI 75470 and the iron oxides CI 77491, 77492 and 77499, under a may-contain block on the maker’s own list that covers the whole shade range in a single published formula. The scent is the weaker half of the record: aroma (flavour) sits seventh of 21, footnoted as natural flavor, a name with an asterisk, though the flower waxes around it, jasmine and cananga, are itemised, which is more than the flavour column manages anywhere else in the field. Eight hours of moisturization and 100% natural origin are graded as claims. No SPF is printed and none is implied; the species is honest about what it is. The arithmetic is not: $33.27 an ounce is the second-steepest rate in the field, charged for a cosmetic record.
$4.99 for the 0.15 oz stick at Target ($33.27 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $4.99 at Target| Active record, as published | 17 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 15 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 14 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 11 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm, SPF 25
Take No. 3’s argument at stick scale, from the same house that supplied its first exhibit. The panel itself is honestly published: avobenzone 3.0% and octinoxate 7.5% in full, petrolatum 40.2% dosed as skin protectant, fourteen inactives with shea butter and the oils itemised and Flavor seventh among them, the tube sold under scent names, Natural Mint and Grapefruit & Ginger among them, on the one panel. But the number at the head of the panel is SPF 25, the floor is 30, the maker’s shelf copy calls 25 optimum sun protection, and optimum is graded as the claim it is. The same house’s face moisturizer was graded 71 as a moisturizer at No. 66 and 45 as a sunscreen at No. 68, on this same pattern: a sound cosmetic record carrying an under-floor sun number at a prestige price. Here the price is $40.00 an ounce, the steepest rate in the field by a wide margin, $10 a tube against $1.46 for the medicated benchmark. An honest record of an under-floor product is still an under-floor product.
$10 for the 0.25 oz tube at Sephora ($40.00 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $10 at Sephora| Active record, as published | 21 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 17 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 11 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 5 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Carmex Classic Lip Balm Medicated (stick)
Sent home. The name is a promise its own stick never numbers. On the stick’s current label the actives are octinoxate 7.5%, oxybenzone 4.0% and white petrolatum 35%, an SPF 15 sunscreen panel at half the floor, while camphor, menthol, salicylic acid and phenol sit in the inactive list, undosed, every one, with flavor at the tail. Nor is the stick the name’s only story: the jar’s label doses camphor 1.7% beside petrolatum 45.3%, and the current Triple Force labels dose nothing but white petrolatum at 41.25%, the same four names undosed again. Three current labels, three different accounts of what the medicine is, and retail copy under this name advertises camphor and menthol in the same breath as the product while printing no number for either, on any label, in any form the desk could read. Each panel is lawful on its own, which is why the score is 58 and not lower. Together, under one name, they do not agree. The arithmetic is genuinely good, the cheapest stick in the field, and the desk prints it, because the conviction is about the record and not the price.
$4.49 for the 4-pack of 0.15 oz sticks at Target ($1.12 a stick, $7.48 an ounce) (October 2026)
| Active record, as published | 15 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 10 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 9 / 20 |
| Value, per ounce and per stick | 13 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 11 / 15 |
The numbers, side by side
| Balm | Score | Species | Price | Per ounce | SPF, as printed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick + Sunscreen | 89 | SPF drug, stick | $6.99 / 2-pack | $20.59 | 30, at the floor |
| CeraVe Healing Lip Balm | 85 | Protectant drug, tube | $7.99 / 0.35 oz | $22.83 | None printed, none claimed |
| Blistex Lip Medex, stick | 83 | Medicated drug, stick | $4.39 / 3-pack | $9.76 | None printed, none claimed |
| Sun Bum Sunscreen Lip Balm | 78 | SPF drug, stick | $3.49 / stick | $23.27 | 30, at the floor |
| Vaseline Lip Therapy Stick, Original | 73 | Plain cosmetic, stick | $2.99 / 2-pack | $9.34 | None printed, none claimed |
| Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm, Rose | 70 | Tinted cosmetic, stick | $4.99 / stick | $33.27 | None printed, none claimed |
| Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm | 67 | SPF drug, tube | $10 / 0.25 oz | $40.00 | 25, five under the floor |
| Carmex Classic Medicated, stick | 58 | Medicated name, SPF drug panel | $4.49 / 4-pack | $7.48 | 15, half the floor |
Four records print an SPF number; two reach the floor of 30. Five print a fragrance, flavor or aroma entry; none itemises it. Two are sold under flavour or scent names. Two print Fragrance Free and make it true. Of the two medicated names, one doses its trio on the stick itself; the other doses it once across three labels. Six records are sticks and two are tubes, and the floor is met at the $3.49 and the $3.50 stick and missed at both the cheapest ounce in the field and the dearest.
Value, per ounce and per stick, in the open
| Balm | Price and size | Per stick | Per ounce | The arithmetic, honestly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carmex Classic Medicated, stick | $4.49 / 4-pack, 0.15 oz each | $1.12 | $7.48 | The field’s cheapest ounce carries its emptiest panel. Cheapness is not the charge; the record is. |
| Vaseline Lip Therapy Stick, Original | $2.99 / 2-pack, 0.16 oz each | $1.50 | $9.34 | The staple’s arithmetic: a short, honest list at the shelf’s floor price. |
| Blistex Lip Medex, stick | $4.39 / 3-pack, 0.15 oz each | $1.46 | $9.76 | The benchmark. The field’s most complete drug panel is also nearly its cheapest ounce. |
| Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick + Sunscreen | $6.99 / 2-pack, 0.17 oz each | $3.50 | $20.59 | The winner’s ounce: mid-field money for the only record that is at the floor, dosed and unscented at once. |
| CeraVe Healing Lip Balm | $7.99 / 0.35 oz tube | $7.99 | $22.83 | One tube is the whole purchase; the fullest published record on the shelf at drugstore-premium arithmetic. |
| Sun Bum Sunscreen Lip Balm | $3.49 / 0.15 oz stick | $3.49 | $23.27 | A friendly stick price over a mid-field ounce; the panel earns it, the flavour framing is the tax. |
| Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm, Rose | $4.99 / 0.15 oz stick | $4.99 | $33.27 | Prestige arithmetic for a cosmetic; what it buys is a published pigment system. |
| Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm | $10 / 0.25 oz tube | $10.00 | $40.00 | The steepest ounce in the field, charged for the field’s only under-floor premium panel. |
Which one to buy
For sun: the Aquaphor stick (89), the only record in the field that is at the floor, fully dosed, unscented and mid-priced at the same time; the Sun Bum stick (78) is the same floor at a friendlier stick price, its panel complete, the flavour the only thing sold that the panel does not itemise. For the medicated job: the Blistex stick (83). Medicated is a drug word, and this is the field’s one fully dosed medicated panel, at $1.46 a stick; it is also the answer to the skip, since everything the Carmex name promises, the Blistex label prints. For a barrier with no sun claim: the CeraVe tube (85), the fullest published record on the shelf with a numbered active; the Vaseline stick (73) is the same job at staple money, a shorter and perfectly honest list with the jelly in sixth place. For colour: the tint (70), knowingly: its pigments are published, which is why it is here at all, and its per-ounce rate is the price of the species. And the Jack Black tube (67) is the field’s cautionary line: a complete, honest panel wrapped around a number five points under the floor at $40 an ounce. The record is fine. The arithmetic is the conviction.
How we know: the honesty section
The records graded. Every drug panel on this page is the maker’s current filed label, read on the public label record: the Aquaphor stick’s four-filter panel, the CeraVe tube’s 49.5% petrolatum panel with its full F.I.L. inactive list, the Blistex stick’s dosed analgesic panel, the Sun Bum stick’s panel and its five sibling flavour labels, the Jack Black tube’s SPF 25 panel, and the three Carmex labels the conviction rests on, the jar, the Triple Force ointment and stick, and the Classic stick graded here. The cosmetics are graded on the makers’ published ingredient lists: the Vaseline stick’s 17-item list, consistent across the maker’s published renderings, and the Burt’s Bees tint’s 21-item list with its may-contain pigment block. Where a house sells the same name in two forms with two panels, the Blistex jar and stick, the Carmex jar, tube and stick, and the Aquaphor stick against its different 0.35 oz lotion tube, the desk graded the form named on the card and printed the divergence rather than averaging it away. Sibling products read and rested, and named here so the field’s edges are honest: the Blistex Medicated Lip Ointment and its SPF 30 Five Star stick, the Malin+Goetz SPF 30 lip balm, a mineral panel at $16, and the ChapStick Moisturizer at SPF 15.
What the desk did not do. No balm was tested on a lip. No efficacy, healing, soothing or protection claim on this page is the desk’s; where such language appears it is quoted or paraphrased from a maker’s panel or shelf copy and graded as a claim. Fever-blister and cold-sore indications appear on sibling labels in this field; they are the makers’ regulated claims, and the desk asserts nothing about any of them. The SPF floor of 30 is the skincare Decoder’s published house standard, applied to lip products as a grading rule and printed as one; it is not a medical recommendation.
The doors. Seven of the eight cards carry buy doors verified live on the merchant’s own domain on the day of checking: Target’s own product pages for Aquaphor, CeraVe, Sun Bum, Vaseline and the Burt’s Bees tint; iHerb’s own product page for the Blistex 3-pack, with Walmart’s single-stick price agreeing at $1.47; and Sephora’s product page for the Jack Black tube, its $10 price agreeing across Sephora, Kohl’s and Ulta listings read the same day. The skip carries no pill, because the stick is sent home. Prices are a snapshot of one shelf on one day and move; the freshness pass owns the re-check, including a verbatim capture of the Vaseline stick’s US pack list and a re-read of the Carmex stick label as filed.
The photo gap, admitted again. The image bank holds no lip balm product photography and no bathroom-shelf frames; a sweep on the day of building confirmed it, the same gap the grooming run has printed since No. 65. The cards therefore run text-first, the panels carrying the evidence, and the hero is a bank frame of the weather this shelf is bought for, captioned honestly. When licensed brand creative reaches the desk, this page gets its product frames; until then the gap is printed rather than papered over with a stock tube.
Questions the desk hears
What is the best lip balm for men?
On the published record, the Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick + Sunscreen at 89 of 100: a complete Drug Facts panel, four sunscreen filters dosed to a 25.5% load that reaches the SPF floor of 30 exactly, 14 inactives all named, no fragrance system at all, and a printed Fragrance Free line its own list makes true, at $3.50 a stick. The answer splits by species. An SPF drug, a protectant drug, a medicated drug, a plain cosmetic and a tinted cosmetic are graded separately on this page, each as itself, and nothing here is graded on whether it works, because the desk asserts no efficacy of its own.
Which lip balms here actually meet the SPF floor of 30?
Two of the four sticks that print an SPF number. The Aquaphor stick and the Sun Bum stick both print SPF 30 and dose their filters in full. The other two fall short: the Jack Black tube prints SPF 25 at $40.00 an ounce, the steepest price in the field, and the Carmex stick prints SPF 15 at $7.48 an ounce in its four-pack, the cheapest ounce in the field. Price does not predict the number. The four balms that print no SPF at all are graded as their own species and are not charged with the floor.
Does a medicated lip balm print its medicine?
One of the field’s two medicated names does. The Blistex Lip Medex stick doses camphor 1.0%, menthol 1.0% and phenol 0.54% as actives, beside petrolatum 42%. Under the Carmex Classic Medicated name, three current labels dose the trio once between them: camphor 1.7% on the jar’s label, and menthol and phenol dosed nowhere; on the stick graded here, all three sit in the inactive list without a number, and salicylic acid sits there with them.
Is the flavour in a lip balm an ingredient?
On five of the eight records a fragrance, flavor or aroma entry appears in the published list, and on none of the eight is the flavour system itemised: it is one word wherever it appears. Two products are sold under flavour or scent names, the Sun Bum stick, whose six flavour labels ride on one identical panel, and the Jack Black tube. Two records print Fragrance Free and make it true, Aquaphor and CeraVe, and one more, the Vaseline stick, carries no fragrance entry and makes no claim about it.
Why is a tinted lip balm ranked on a men’s page?
Because its colour system is published as ingredients. The Burt’s Bees tinted stick prints its pigments by CI number, titanium dioxide CI 77891, carmine CI 75470 and the iron oxides, under a may-contain block that covers the shade range in a single list. The ruling printed on this page: a tint that publishes its pigments is a record and is graded as its own species; a tint that printed only a shade name would have been ruled out of the field.
Stick or tube: does the format change the grade?
The formats are graded as themselves. Six of the eight records are sticks and two are squeeze tubes, the CeraVe protectant and the Jack Black tube. Value is graded per ounce and per stick both, because this shelf’s sizes cluster tightly, 0.15 to 0.35 ounces, and per-ounce arithmetic alone would call a $1.46 Blistex stick and a $10 Jack Black tube a closer contest than the till does.
Why was Carmex sent home?
Because the word Medicated is the product’s whole pitch and the stick’s own panel never doses the medication. Three current labels under the Classic Medicated name print three different active stories: the jar doses camphor 1.7%, the Triple Force labels dose nothing but petrolatum, and the stick prints an SPF 15 sunscreen panel, half the floor, with camphor, menthol, salicylic acid and phenol all undosed in its inactives. Each panel is lawful on its own. Together, under one name, they do not agree about what the medicine is, and the stick is silent on its headline. Scored 58 and sent home.
Verdict Card No. 72. The grooming run continues: the conditioner Card (No. 71), the shampoo Card (No. 70), the body wash Card (No. 69), the sunscreen Card (No. 68), the cleanser Card (No. 67), the moisturizer Card (No. 66), the deodorant Card (No. 65), the skincare Decoder, and the Grooming Takes, No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, on the claims behind the shelf.
Checked and updated October 2026