Sponsored: Why Commercial Lip Balms are Bad for My Celiac Lady Friends | Erica, Celiac & Coffee Enthusiast

Article Courtesy:  Erica Dermer, Celiac and the Beast

I wanted to tell you about Red Apple Lipstick’s Rallye Balm and why I have thrown out pretty much everything in my make-up drawer but Red Apple Lipstick.

When I was first diagnosed with celiac (well, I mean the first time I was properlydiagnosed), it was a bit of shocking blow – and if you’ve been diagnosed, you know what I’m talking about. Everything about your life has to change, and immediately. Believe me, take my advice and go cold turkey and quite gluten ASAP!

I’ve learned a lot over the years – some of it I stumbled onto myself, learned from experts, and other things I learned from meeting so many of you at expos and conferences, book signings, the stall next door – you get me. Recently, I learned something new that I wanted to share with you – and it’s all about chapped lips.

I don’t know about you, but I suffer from chronic dry, chapped lips. The Arizona desert is particularly rough on my beautiful skin and lips. Sometimes I feel more like a lizard than a lady. And what makes it worse is that after drinking my “cat lady” juice (aka red win) at night, I wake up with flaky purple scales instead of lips! I just gave up trying to fix it after a while and lived with it. But, my friend Jay Harper (you may know him better as the CEO of Red Apple Lipstick) filled me in on why this happens and how to make it worse.

Jay and I go way back, we attend a lot of the same expos and shows, and he and his wife are pretty amazing people. They specialize in making lip products like lipsticks and glosses specifically for women with celiac disease (and even make some damn fine eyeshadow too).

So from what I’ve learned from Jay, here’s an explanation of the chapped lips thing:

• Lip skin is thinner than any other skin on your body.
• Your lips don’t have sebaceous glands like the rest of your body.
• Vitamin A deficiency can cause dry skin.
• Vitamin B deficiency can cause cracks in your lips.
• Once your lips are damaged, the healing process is hampered by vitamin deficiencies, oxidized cells and the body spends a lot of time keeping out infection over growing healthy tissue.

So why do commercial lip balms make it worse?

• Blocked airflow – most commercial lip balms are made from a heavy wax. You’re told that it’s to “protect” your lips, but it actually blocks your skin from getting oxygen – keeping them chapped.
• Ingredients like alcohol, camphor, phenol and menthol actually reduce moisture in your skin.
• Special “flavors” and “scents” can cause you to lick your lips more. Remember that awesome Dr. Pepper lip gloss we used as a kid?
• Lack of healing ingredients – as certain ingredients can help your body heal itself better, like the antioxidant vitamin E applied topically (be careful, they aren’t all gmo-free or gluten free!)
• Colorants, tints and preservatives can cause sensitized allergic skin reactions – especially if your skin is as sensitive as mine is. That’s just one more thing your body has to fight now, as if it didn’t have enough to do already!

Talking to Jay, he honestly believes that some lip balms are actually made to keep you using them – chronically. He discovered that the lip balm industry is a $370 million dollar industry. Ordinary lip balms won’t help or make the your lips worse.

So he developed a product called Rallye (like “rally”) Balm, which he described as a “simple but effective product.” It’s basically a high-quality gluten-free vitamin E along with a couple of other ingredients known to help the skin heal itself. And it works. And I love it!

What he taught me is that vitamin E  acts as a great antioxidant – removing oxidized cells from the skin and helping your cells maintain its correct bioactivity. It helps your actual cells be more clean and stronger – making it easier for your body to heal itself.

So his vitamin E is suspended in a high-quality, gluten-free cold-pressed castor seed oil, which helps your chapped lips in a couple ways. It’s an anti-inflammatory, an analgesic, and an immune system booster, and antibacterial. This is another reason why Rallye Balm is so good for other parts of your body too – cuticles, dry spots, acne, itchy spots, under my eyes or even on my scalp.

Rallye Balm isn’t just chapstick. It’s pretty different, and it’s one of those products that I urge you to try. See what it does to your lips. See what it does to the rest of you. Buy this product from good people that believe in the cause, believe in awareness, and believe in the ingredients that they produce.

**Red Apple Lipstick is a sponsor of Celiac and the Beast and we’ve worked together on many projects – some of them paid, many unpaid. I am also an affiliate for Red Apple Lipstick. However, I believe in this product. I love this product. I use this product daily. I threw out all my old make-up and only use RAL. Yes, it’s just that good**