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Zinc Oxide Safe in Lip Balms?

QUESTION:
Are your Calendula and Blisswax Lip Balms with Zinc Oxide safe to use as a daily lip balms since they have zinc in them? I like the ingredients in them the best. Thanks

BRENDA’S ANSWER:
It is a very good question. As I am sure you know, zinc oxide is the favorite sunblock ingredient for safe sunscreen in natural skin lines. But is it actually safe when used in lip balms? Obviously, if it is in a lip balm, you’ll probably ingest a little bit, right? Maybe?

Zinc Oxide

I use non-nano Zinc Oxide

First, I do use a non-nano form of zinc oxide which they tell me isn’t permeable like nano zinc oxide and this makes it safer. Actually, it is also especially safer to be used my the maker (me) because there is some evidence that non-sized zinc oxide particles in dust form can be pretty bad for you when inhaled.

Here’s an article about that: www.rodalesorganiclife.com/wellbeing/sunscreen-nanoparticles

Is Zinc Oxide in Lips Too Much Zinc Oxide?

I couldn’t find much suggesting that Zinc Oxide is dangerous in lip balm BUT people are taking it to prevent colds and flu so if you are, then you might be getting too much. I imagine it is good to track how much zinc is in other products, like your vitamins. 

How Much Zinc Oxide does my Lip Balm Have in it?

My lip balm will not have more than 10% zinc and my lip balm’s total weight is not more than 4252 milligrams, each lip balm should not have more than 425 mg of Zinc Oxide in each balm.

I am not sure how much lip balm we put on each day, nor how much of that is actually ingested but I feel pretty comfortable using it myself.  However, to be a little more definitive, this is what I found out:

I did find a reference that says that we should get about 7 mg daily and it should not exceed 40 mg. 
www.consumerreports.org/vitamins-supplements/6-reasons-not-to-take-zinc-

BIRCHBOX BEAUTY HACKS COUNT HOW MANY SWIPES OF LIPSTICK IS IN A TUBE

It seems you would get sick if you ingested 200 mg/day, so if you ate half of the lip balm in one day,, that is too much zinc for a day.

But how much lip balm do we use in a day?

I found this:
blog.birchbox.com/post/46250122706/how-many-swipes-are-in-a-tube-of-lips…

It looks like 3.5 grams of lipstick has about 293 swipes. This works out to approx. 83 swipes per gram.

My lip balms should hold about 4 grams of lip balm or 332 swipes.

So, if my math is right (and it may not be so correct me if you spot an error) each swipe of lip balm has 12 milligrams of lip balm and 1.2 milligrams of zinc oxide at most.

If you ingest ALL of the lip balm on your lips every time you apply, you’d need to apply the lip balm 6 times to your lips and lick it all off and ingest it to get your daily suggested amount of zinc oxide (about 7 mg). I’m not saying you should do this but it seems you might need to apply the lip balm 30 times a day to your lips and lick it all off to exceed the maximum amount of zinc oxide one should ingest in a day.

Thanks for your interest in my lips balms and I hope this helps. I found researching and writing it very informative.
All my best,
Brenda

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