Best Natural Lip Balm

Shortly after making the switch to natural bodycare, Amanda-Jane Healy was in a work meeting, when she came to an awkward realisation. Her new deodorant was natural, and expensive…and it didn’t actually work. Amanda-Jane spent the rest of the meeting with her arms pinned to her sides, wondering whether she’d ever find truly natural, truly effective bodycare.

It was one of several life moments that led Amanda-Jane to create Everkind; her own line of all-natural, certified-organic bodycare. In the years since, Everkind’s range has grown to include natural deodorant, baby balms, insect repellent, and more. Each product is lovingly hand-made using only the most ethical – and effective – ingredients.

Everkind Lip Care is the latest to join the line-up. Three years in the making, Amanda-Jane describes it as ‘luxury lip care, reimagined’. With all the silky glide-on feel of traditional lip care, but none of the plastics or synthetics.

When the lip balms won the 2023 Good Magazine Best of Natural Award for lip care, and Everkind won the 2023 TSB Business Award for Environmental Excellence, we decided it was time to sit down with Amanda-Jane to talk about why lip care needed reimagining in the first place, and how the pursuit of a compromise-free product led to a packaging world-first.

 What made you choose lip care as the next step in the Everkind journey?

It felt like a natural progression for us. Lip balm is one of those everyday products that has a long history with synthetics. I grew up using petroleum-jelly-based products, and propylene glycol (a liquid plastic) is also really common. Then there are the parabens and artificial fragrances that are found in all sorts of bodycare products – lip care included.

As my daughter was coming close to the lip balm years, I’d been looking for a purely natural alternative for her. There were plenty of options out there, but texture-wise I’d always found them quite hard or grainy. I wanted something nourishing that would glide on beautifully. I just couldn’t find a luxury organic lip balm that worked for me, so I decided to make my own.

After you created your lip care formula, you waited three years before bringing it to market. What made you choose to hold off launching?

For me, lip balm is as much about the experience as it is for nourishing your lips. It’s not enough for it to be organic, effective, look good, and taste good. It also has to be a joy to use. That meant application – and packaging – needed to be a big part of the story.

I’ve always preferred lip balm in a stick, rather than a jar or tin. But with over 200 million plastic tubes already ending up in the world’s landfills every year, I didn’t want to add to the problem. I started looking at all the cardboard-only options available, but they all relied on pushing the balm stick up with your finger. This meant the tube had to be so wide, it literally felt like rubbing a big crayon on my face…not exactly the luxurious self-care moment I’d hoped for!

I knew I wanted the sleek and slim feel of traditional lip balm sticks, without having to compromise on Everkind’s zero-waste ethos. But the solution just didn’t exist. I didn’t want to take the formula to market without the right application, so for three years it was just my daughter and me using it at home.

Eventually, the solution did exist – you just had to create it. How did you end up engineering a world-first in lip care packaging?

One of my lovely suppliers sent me an existing 3-layer tube design, which had two cardboard layers and one plastic layer. I got in touch with the manufacturers, and asked them if we could come up with a completely cardboard-only version. The engineers jumped onto it really quickly and sent me a concept in just a few days.

After a bit of back and forth and a couple of prototypes, we landed on the final design within about six weeks. From there, our amazing graphic designers at phd3 took the base and made it our own, so the total package felt uber beautiful.

It was really exciting to create something new, and to work with a team who believes in all the same things we do. For me, it’s about gathering people together who have that real commitment to care, and I think it comes across in the final product.

It’s also very rewarding to know that there’s now a cardboard-only, home-compostable packaging option on the market. If every lip balm out there came in this tube, it’d mean such good things for the planet. I’d really love that.

There are two flavours in the range, Plush and Billow. Do you have a favourite?

The concept for both flavours was very customer-driven. We reached out to our amazing community for feedback, and there was a big push for vanilla and mint. Plush (the vanilla) is definitely my favourite, just because it absolutely epitomises self-care. It’s so soothing and restful – I love putting it on first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Billow (the spearmint) is really peppy and invigorating. It’s the one I reach for when I’m heading out for a walk.

There’s a really strong contrast between the soft and nurturing vanilla of Plush, and the vibrancy of Billow. The two have very clear personalities. And people have been loving them! They love the formula, love the glide, love the flavour, which is so great to hear.

What’s next for Everkind?

Ever since we first started, one of Everkind’s goal has been zero-waste for our customers. So I’m thrilled that by the end of the year, Everkind’s entire packaging range will be all-paper and 100% home-compostable. This transition to paper-only has been in the works for a few years now, so it’s incredible to see it all coming together.

More broadly, our mission is to make truly natural the natural choice. And I feel like this lip care does just that. There’s nothing about it that’s ‘less than’ any other luxury lip balm or lipstick, so anyone and everyone can make the switch. It’s about making natural mainstream, and that’s what’s really exciting for me.