I picked up my habit my sophomore year at Bob Jones University. I had the most embarrassing chapped lips. They made me look like a toddler who’d attempted to wear Mommy’s lipstick. Who knows how many products failed me. I was desperate. Then my roommate loaned me her jar. Carmex worked! I was addicted!
The idea of using a jar was repulsive to me. Your options were to either stick your grungy finger in there or stick your bottom lip out and twist the jar on it. Fortunately, back in 1988, Carma Laboratories had added a squeeze tube to their lineup.
I had to have my Carmex with me at all times. It was stashed everywhere. I even slept with one next to my bed—I couldn’t go to sleep until I’d applied some.
The correct way to overcome an addiction is to determine the root issue otherwise you just swap one addiction for another. I determined it wasn’t a heart problem. Maybe it wasn’t really an addiction either.
I was using one product that solved one problem while creating another. Back in the early 1930s Alfred Woelbing invented Carmex to relieve his chapped lips and cold sores, so Carmex contains a cold sore drying agent (salicylic acid). I don’t need help drying out my lips. I wasn’t using it for the originally intended purpose.
Now I use a moisturizing balm that does not dry out my lips, and therefore doesn’t require that it be used so frequently.
Who knows how many people I got addicted to Carmex over those 14 years. If you are one of them, please accept my apology. I could start a support group if it’ll make you feel better.
Aw, man. I thought this was going to be about Matt’s smoking.
I used to get chapped lips and dried, cracked hands all the time. The best solution I’ve found: drink lots of water. The other name it goes by is “as God intended.”
Similarly, I used to keep a bottle of Robitussin around and chug it when I’d get a cold. Haven’t used cold medicine in a very long time, now, though. Solution: same.
Hmmm. Remember the fall? We humans messed up God’s original design, and now we’re all in various stages of dying.
I agree that water and proper nutrition are necessary for health and to slow the dying process, but I live in a desert. I’m gonna guess that deserts weren’t part of the original design either.
No disrespect to your mentioned cure. I’m not arguing the fall or God’s original design; that was merely a figure of speech (though human history since the fall has survived without Bath and Body Works quite well). All I was propounding is the quantifiable proof that I, living in the driest climate I ever have, have had next to no problems with dry skin. While I started purposely drinking more water to counteract the large amounts of caffeine, it has also paid off in fewer skin problems and less sick time.
