Bag Balm

Original Skin Moisturiser

Whether your skin treatment needs include healing dry skin, moisturizing cracked hands and feet, fixing split heels, providing new tattoo after care, soothing cuts and scrapes, or relieving sunburns and windburns, Vermont's Original Bag Balm® has you covered. Works on hands, feet, face, and everywhere in between. Bag Balm® is guaranteed to effectively moisturize and soothe your skin for long-lasting relief.

Uploaded by: vagabonne on 02/08/2020

Ingredients overview

Petrolatum, Lanolin, 8-Hydroxyquinoline sulfate (0.3%), Paraffin Wax

Read more on how to read an ingredient list >>

Highlights

Emollient: Petrolatum, Lanolin

Emulsifying: Lanolin

Perfuming: Paraffin Wax

Surfactant/cleansing: Lanolin

Viscosity controlling: Paraffin Wax

Skim through

Ingredient name	what-it-does	irr., com.
Petrolatum	emollient
Lanolin	emollient, emulsifying, surfactant/cleansing	0, 0-1
8-Hydroxyquinoline sulfate (0.3%)
Paraffin Wax	viscosity controlling, perfuming

Bag Balm Original Skin Moisturiser
Ingredients explained

Petrolatum

Also-called: Petroleum jelly, Vaseline | What-it-does: emollient

The famous Vaseline or Petroleum Jelly. Just like mineral oil, it is also a by-product of refining crude oil, aka petroleum, and it is also a mixture of hydrocarbons but with bigger (C18-90+) carbon chain length.

The unique thing about petrolatum is that it is the most effective occlusive agent known today. While the occlusivity of mineral oil is in the same league as the occlusivity of plant oils, petrolatum is in a league of its own. It sits on top of the skin and hinders so-called transepidermal water loss (TEWL) like nothing else.

This comes in handy healing cracked lips or severely dry skin patches, though overdoing it (i.e. reducing TEWL by more than 40%) is not good as it can create a nice moist place for fungi and bacteria to grow.

As for petrolatum and safety, we can write here pretty much the exact same thing as we have written at mineral oil. There is no evidence whatsoever that cosmetic, USP grade petrolatum is carcinogenic. It also does not absorb into the skin but sits on top of it and that in itself greatly minimises health risks. It also has a long history of safe use, as it was first used as a skincare product more than 100 years ago, in 1872 to be precise.

It is also non-comedogenic, though its pure form is very heavy and greasy so combination and oily skin types might want to avoid it anyway.

Overall, it is the gold-standard occlusive agent known today and a tub of Vaseline comes in handy in any household to heal cracked lips or other severely dry skin patches.

Lanolin