Posted by LONG (but funny) on November 07, 2002 at 13:19:54:
In Reply to: Re: Lip Care posted by Popeye on November 07, 2002 at 12:22:46:
Sounds like you were using CARMEX!!
That stuff is garbage. It is very soothing, but contains allum. And if you will study your Warner Brothers cartoons carefully, you will see that allum is a nasty DRYING AGENT (that poor Sylvester the Cat . . . ) and turns your lips into old leather!!!!!
Carmex feels GREAT when you put it on, but it CAUSES what it claims to cure. Because it was designed to DRY OUT cold sores (NOT to sooth already chapped lips).
Nasty, nasty, nasty stuff for a brass musician.
For a bit of humor-infused information, I have included the following newspaper article. It is an article from the San Francisco Examiner from a while back. Read all of it. It is funny, but it is true. Then go and buy yourself some Palmer's.
Pssst; Wanna Get Lip Balmed?
By Stephanie Salter
Tuesday, May 18, 1993.
Page A15.
The tiny, milky-white glass pot slipped from my hand and hit the tile floor of the bar. Then the little pot began to roll under the bar stools as I gave chase.
In one unbroken motion, a young Richard Gere look-alike swept down, retrieved the little pot and handed it back to me.
"I thought I recognized the sound of a Carmex jar hitting the floor," he said.
I believe it is the comedian Paula Poundstone who has a routine about Carmex addicts. She jokes that there is a secret wing at the Betty Ford Clinic for such people, and that they roam the halls begging for "just one little dip" of their finger into a pot.
Carmex is a cold sore and chapped-lip salve that was invented in 1936 and made mostly of menthol, camphor, alum and wax. As Carmex junkies know, this yellow moosh is not just another lip balm.
Carmex packs a kind of rush for the kisser. Once you've felt this rush, it's impossible not to want it again. And again. And again.
Then there are the little pots.
Although Carmex has been available since 1987 in small plastic tubes, the true junkie consumes it only in its original and pure state, from milky-white glass mini-jars.
An inch deep and the diameter of a half-dollar, a Carmex pot is not convenient, modern or unobtrusive. In the back pocket of a pair of jeans, it makes you look deformed.
So what? By the time you develop into a full-blown Carmex junkie - after the first swipe is offered by "a friend" - it wouldn't matter if the container were the size of a baby goat. You would carry it everywhere. And stash one in your car and an extra in your desk and another on your nightstand.
The little pot is part of what the grandson of Carmex's creator calls, "the whole gestalt of Carmex." Take the jar away and Carmex loses some of its mystery.
"The jars are kind of our trademark," said Paul Woelbing by phone from Carma Lab, Inc., in Franklin, Wis. "You know, I can recognize the sound of one of those caps coming off even in a big lecture hall."
Can't we all? The easiest way to discover a Carmex addict is to produce a little pot and unscrew the yellow-and-black lid. An addict will pounce, index finger or pinkie extended, and moan, "Ooooh. Can I have some?"
Paul Woelbing (pronounced WELL-bing) knows all about Carmex junkies. Every day, mail arrives at the lab from people wanting to know if there is an addictive ingredient in the stuff.
"One common suspicion is that we put a really terrible acid in it that roughs up your lips and makes you need more Carmex," he said. "But the acid we use is salicylic acid, which is aspirin. Another rumor is that we grind up fiber glass and put that in."
At 36, Paul Woelbing is the treasurer of Carma Lab, Inc. Paul's father is vice president. Paul's 92-year-old granddad - yes, the inventor of Carmex, Alfred Woelbing! - is still the president, working 50-60 hours a week.
A practical man, Alfred Woelbing created Carmex in 1936 because he had cold sores. He called the lab, "Carma," because he liked the sound of the word, and he put "ex" on the end because "ex" was a very popular suffix back in the 1930s.
Never in Carmex's 56-year history have the Woelbings advertised or marketed their product - unless you count "the $10 a year we spend for my dad's vanity (license) plate," said Paul.
"I guess you might say we do business in a unique way," said Alfred Woelbing, who joined his grandson on the phone. "Maybe our way of doing business is old- fashioned, but it's successful."
Indeed, last May, Adweek praised Carma Lab as one of five, single-product, U.S. companies that has continually bucked the downward trend of the recession.
"Barely a week goes by that some large company doesn't want to buy out Carma Lab," said Alfred Woelbing. "But our company is not for sale."
"We treat our business as an organism, and try to let it grow as one," said Paul Woelbing. "Expansion? What for? As long as we're making a comfortable living and everybody is happy, what more do you really need?"
Well, since you asked, Paul, how about a bigger container of Carmex? A hard-core addict can make short work of even the largest size now available, the half- ounce, $1.89-size.
"We sell an eight-ounce jar directly from here if people order it," said Paul Woelbing. "It costs $9.50."
Do you hear that, junkies? Eight ounces of Carmex for under 10 bucks. And Carma Lab's address is right on your little lid, in gnat-size type. At that price, think of how generous you can be to people who've never felt the thrill.
Yes, over here, sonny. I've got something that will make those chapped lips feel allll better. And the first hit is free.
***************
Back to the TubeNet:
None of the Vitamin E/Cocoa Butter products contain this ingredient (alum), so they actually work. Using them for a few days will not cause you to have to use them "forever". Of course, that famous Carmex "rush" mentioned in the Examiner article is missing, but who cares?
Carmex also contains Camphor, which is an no-no from what I have heard if it is in too large a quantity. (And I don't know what that quantity might be.)
Read your labels! Some of these products are wonderful, but some just make things worse. Always avoid allum!!
Wade "remembering using Carmex in the January and realizing that I was still using it 5 or 6 times a day in July" Rackley