My New York apartment is littered with lip balms. As a beauty editor, I have the privilege of trying out new product launches as part of my job, and lip balm is one of the easiest to test—which is convenient, because it’s also become one of the most frequent. 

In 2025, seemingly every brand joined the lip balm club, from Rare Beauty and Patrick Ta to Louis Vuitton. But as the category has grown, it has also become increasingly confusing: In addition to traditional balms and treatments, there are also lip oils, glazes, butters, nectars, and even milks, all competing for makeup-bag real estate. And reaching for a tube has started to feel like a game of lip balm roulette: Will what I put on actually help my dry lips, or will it simply add a glossy shine? In some cases, I’m not sure what I apply should even qualify as a balm at all. 

I’m not the one who gets to make those decisions, though. Take a look at Ulta’s “lip balms and treatments,” which currently has over 400 results. Of the 20 products featured at the top when sorted by bestsellers, none are a traditional stick format, and six are actually butters, serums, and masks. So where does the line get drawn?

“Traditionally, lip balms have been very different from what we’re talking about today,” says Emmy Ketcham, head chemist and co-founder of skincare brand Experiment. “They were more oils, butters, waxes-based. We are moving toward a much wider lens of what could be called a ‘lip balm.’” 

The shift can partially be attributed to Summer Fridays, whose $24 Lip Butter Balms have an ultra-glossy finish and come in a range of shades and scents. The brand is one of five that has a veritable chokehold on the market: “Summer Fridays, Laneige, Rhode, Dior, and Glossier are responsible for over 50% of [prestige] units sold,” says Melissa Munnerlyn, co-founder and CEO of commerce intelligence platform Daash.

So while lip, as a category, has always been popular (I’m a proud member of the Lip Smackers Generation myself), it now represents a bigger piece of the pie: a whopping 16% of the units sold within prestige skincare, according to Munnerlyn.

“It feels like every brand is not only launching a lip product, but a whole range of lip products—different colors, different scents, different aesthetics,” says Muneeb Shah, MD, board-certified dermatologist and founder of Remedy Skin. The brand launched a single lip balm, Remedy for Dry Lips, within its initial debut back in March 2024. “I’ve had to resist the urge to launch multiple products in multiple shades,” he says, saying that doing so would negate their skin-health-first ethos. “It takes a lot of discipline as a founder, because you see so much growth from launching these.” 

Other brands haven’t been so judicious. According to Munnerlyn, over 50 new lip balm products have launched in 2025 alone—and yet, so little of them actually seem to do their job. So how, exactly, did we get here? Ahead, we unpack.

What Caused the Lip Balm Boom?

In a word: COVID. Culturally, we became obsessed with skincare circa 2020, and hybrid skincare-makeup products—serum foundations, primers, pretty much everything Rhode makes—started trending. According to Ketcham, lip was an easy way in—both for brands and shoppers. “When people are looking for something that feels like a treatment but also has an aesthetic effect, lips are pretty obvious,” she says.

Unlike science-y serums or expensive moisturizers, lip care also happens to be fun. It’s an impulse buy—the kind that can make you feel better just having it in your bag. “Skincare [can get] kind of boring, and lip is a place where people feel like they can play a bit and express themselves in different ways,” adds Shah. 

If you want a product in two colors or flavors, or to try more than one brand at once, the limit does not exist. “People will buy five balms before they ever buy a second foundation,” says Alexis Androulakis, a beauty product developer and one half of The Lipstick Lesbians. Plus, she notes that it’s a truly universal product, for every age range and skin type. “Everyone uses a lip balm.”

But What Makes a Lip Balm a Lip Balm?

In my purse right now there are four products: Vaseline Lip Therapy, Tarte Maracuja Juicy Lip Balm, Drunk Elephant Lippe Balm, and Ole Henriksen Pout Preserve Peptide Lip Treatment. Each is vastly different, and yet all are, technically, lip balms. 

“From a formulator’s perspective, a lot of what we think of as skincare categories aren’t real,” explains Ketcham. “There isn’t a true definition of what a lip balm should be. There’s no rubric that [says] it has to check these boxes.” 

Still, some products are undoubtedly lip balm-ier than others even though ingredient-wise, there tends to be a lot of crossover. “The primary ingredient primary positioning is dominated by three ingredient stories: peptides, shea butter, and squalane,” says Munnerlyn.

One major variable is the texture: All the experts agree that the platonic ideal should act as an occlusive, meaning it forms a layer to seal in hydration. But the best formulas go beyond that. “The thicker something is, the more it reads as a balm. The thinner something is, the more it reads like an oil or a gloss,” says Androulakis, adding that even though they’re marketed as such, “Lip oils are not balms. They’re sheer and rely on high-gloss materials.”

Ketcham builds on that definition, adding that a good lip balm should be substantive, meaning it doesn’t disappear when you’re moving your mouth a lot, and should actually hydrate the lips. “Most lip balms don’t have water in them, they are a mix of oils, waxes, and balms,” she explains. “So they nourish lips and prevent water loss, but they aren’t able to add hydration to the lips.”

As Androulakis puts it, the difference is less about what’s inside a product, and more in the experience of using it. “This category is so enmeshed now that it is almost impossible to cleanly separate glosses from balms based on formula alone. They share so many similar ingredients,” says Androulakis. “What really separates them is the sensory experience: how they feel, how they wear, and how they shine.” 

Does It Even Matter?

Well, it depends. If you want a lip balm to soothe your chapped lips, there’s a lot of fluff out there to distract you. But for a lot of beauty fans, hype is just as important. “Lip is a status category. The emotional experience of pulling a product out of your bag matters just as much as the formula,” says Androulakis.

She points to Rhode’s Peptide Lip Treatments, which have repeatedly sold out and inspired a viral phone case despite complaints about its texture. “Rhode had a peptide balm that went grainy and literally felt like an exfoliator, but they didn’t lose market share,” she says. “That alone shows how powerful and status-driven this category is.” (Worth noting: They’ve since been reformulated since entering Sephora this year.)

However, one potential downside to trendy lip products containing ingredients like flavors, fragrances, and essential oils is that they could make the lips feel worse. 

“You put these ingredients on the lips, which cause low-level inflammation,” explains Shah. “Because they’re in a glossy base, they feel good when you put them on, but you’ll notice your lips will feel drier and drier.” In rare and extreme cases, products can even cause discoloration if ingredients have a photoreaction—that is, react when exposed to sunlight. “I think where they’re missing the mark, from a derm perspective, is the allergens that these products have,” says Shah. “But on the flip side, [brands are] operating within their brand thesis.”

If my inbox is any indication, lip balm isn’t going to shrink as a category—and as trends evolve from ultra-glossy to matte and blurred, what qualifies as one will likely only get less defined. “I think we’ll continue to see more types of products be called ‘lip balms,’” predicts Munnerlyn.

So, What “Lip Balms” Actually Work?

If a true balm is what you want, we’ve done the market research for you. Here are eight lip balms—not glosses, not oils—you can trust.

Aquaphor Lip Repair

Androulakis says this iconic product is “hard to beat” at the drugstore. “The tube is not cute and the plastic tip is not giving luxury, but it works. It loads in the hydration, and then you can layer Vaseline on top to lock it in with that occlusive barrier. They work differently, but together they are extremely effective.”

Experiment Softwear

Ketcham used Accutane in her 20s, which completely dried out her lips. So when formulating Softwear, she wanted to create a product with that community in mind to offer hydration, cushion, and gentle exfoliation in one. “I wanted something that could cocoon your lips, so you don’t feel those little crusties,” she says.

Remedy for Dry Lips

Shah’s formula “has a cult following, but it’s not trendy or sexy,” he says. It’s just as much about what it does contain (ceramides, squalane, dimethicone, petrolatum) as what it doesn’t (flavors, fragrances, and essential oils). “We also look at the most common allergens, and when we formulate we make sure we don’t use any of those,” he explains.

Violette_FR Balm Amour

Androukis reaches for this peptide-infused formula “when I want something sensorial and elevated.” She also likes the experience of using it: “Her ceramic tip is one of my favorites and it completely changes the application.” 

Eadem Le Chouchou Lip Softening Balm

For tinted balms, Androukis loves Eadem’s sheer, shiny, and softening formulas. “Eadem is also one of my favorites because it represents that next generation of treatment balms with exfoliation built in,” she explains.

Lawless Beauty Forget The Filler Overnight Lip Plumping Mask

In the lip mask wars, this jar from Lawless Beauty is my top contender. It’s just the right thickness, not sticky, and leaves my lips soft and smooth when I wake up in the morning. Does it plump my lips? I don’t know about that, but I don’t need it to.

Image Skincare Ormedic Balancing Lip Enhancement Complex

The tube is small, but Image Skincare’s peptide-infused lip balm is probably my personal favorite everyday balm. Long-lasting, buttery, and with just the slightest sheer pink tint, it’s somehow worth the (admittedly steep) price.