Make chappy lips feel like happy lips! (Blistex Lip Relief Cream (Healing))

Member Name: peaceofcake

Product:	Blistex Lip Relief Cream (Healing)
Date:	29/07/09 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very soothing and healing, works well with Tea Tree Oil, good price.

Disadvantages: Silly, messy tube.

When my lips are chapped beyond all repair or a cold sore has launched it's attack I reach straight for Blistex Relief Cream (formerly Blisteze) then it won't be long before my chappy lips are happy lips!

When there's so many lip balms / creams / lotions / potions etc to choose from it's hard to know what's worth the pennies in your purse. Blistex Relief Cream is one of them. Currently £2.19 from Boots, you get 5g, it comes in a metal tube with a red cap, on the shelf it'll be in a box and if it's side by side the rest of the Blistex range it's the one with 'HEALING' on the front (they are all very similarly packaged).

As I said this used to be called Blisteze and I remember using it as a child (I've always suffered from chapped lips from time to time and cold sores too) so it's a brand and product I've grown up to trust. Blistex Relief Cream is a medicated lip treatment designed to relieve and treat occasional cold sores and cracked and chapped lips. I can confidently say that it delivers on these promises. I think the 'medicated' part refers to the following active ingredients - Aromatic Ammonia Solution, Strong Ammonia Solution and Liquefied Phenol. It is my belief that these are responsible for the healing effect this has on lips. I looked on the ingredients lists on other lip care products (mainly for cold sores and chapped lips - the most serious of serious lip treatments) and none of them seemed to include these ingredients. Maybe that's what makes Blistex Relief Cream so unique and effective?

There are other ingredients (one of which is Peppermint oil - probably what gives the tingly sensation) these are mainly moisturising ingredients such as White Soft Paraffin and Lanolin. Please do check the ingredients list before trying if you are worried about allergies. I've never personally had any adverse reactions to this product.

So for really chapped and cracked lips - this is great. Just apply it whenever throughout the day and at bedtime to heal them right up then continue to apply it as you like to maintain the moisture. Lips are a very delicate area of skin, it's very thin and has no sebaceous glands so it can't effectively moisturise itself. This cream is an ideal everyday lip care product too - not just for times when your lips are particularly bad or when the weather is bad (lips need special attention just as much in the summer heat as in the winter) so I'd recommend that this should be used all year round to keep your lips happy!

As for cold sores...
Hmm. Yes it does heal. Yes it is intensively moisturising and soothing. But no it won't get rid of a cold sore. It might help with the healing and overall condition of the lips through the duration of the cold sore but it wont fight it. For that I would recommend the winning combination of Blistex Relief Cream (to soothe and retain moisture) and neat 100% Tea Tree Oil (it will blast the cold sore into oblivion but will be very drying so that's where the Blistex comes in). That's my top tip for all cold sore sufferers. Nasty I know. Try this combo next time as opposed to the extortionately priced 5% Aciclovir creams (Zovirax, Boots Avert etc).

The one thing I would say about this cream, is that it annoyingly squirts out on it's own accord, at rapid speed, making a mess everywhere as soon as you take the top off. So periodically you may have to clean the nozzle and cap because it can get gunky. It's a quirky trait of this product. I haven no doubt that the manufacturers came up with a new packaging solution for it years ago but dismissed it thinking that customers had come to love the crazy behaviour of the cream.

Take the top off, a bit comes out, no wait a bit more, ah no there's more, I can't put the cap on, should I put it on?, squish squish squish. Mess. Such a mess.

Quirky? or Flawed?

And as you squeeze further along the tube and it's spent along time in your hand bag, little holes appear in the creases of the metal so the cream starts coming out of everywhere!!

It does lose it's crazyness as it starts to run low in the tube. Should I have knocked a star off for it? Maybe not. Bring out a better tube Blistex!

I advise you keep the tube in the box for as long as you can stand. It doesn't respond well to being squashed around in a pocket or bag.

So to summarise - don't be put off by this humble and slightly boring lip balm (let's face it, there's a lot more glamorous lip care products on the shelves!) Blistex Relief Cream / Blisteze really has stood the test of time and wins hands down when it comes to cracked, chapped, sore and unhappy lips.

Summary: Soothing and affordable lip care for severely cracked and chapped lips.