When you’re diagnosed with coeliac disease, checking labels quickly becomes second nature.
Bread, sauces, snacks and restaurant menus are the obvious places to look. But there is another product many of us put against our mouths several times a day without giving its ingredients much thought - lip balm.
Most skincare doesn't pose the same concern. Gluten needs to be ingested to affect someone with coeliac disease; it isn't absorbed through healthy skin. That means there is generally no reason for someone with coeliac disease to replace every moisturiser, shampoo or body product they own simply because it contains a gluten-derived ingredient.
Lip products, however, sit in a slightly different category.
What goes on your lips doesn't necessarily stay there
Think about what happens after you apply lip balm.
You eat. You drink. You lick your lips. You talk. You reapply.
A portion of the product gradually disappears, and some of it inevitably ends up being swallowed.
There isn't good evidence behind some of the dramatic statistics online claiming that people "eat kilos of lipstick" during their lifetime. There is, however, a more useful figure.
The European Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety uses 57 mg per day as its standard daily exposure estimate for lipstick and lip salve. For some safety calculations, researchers conservatively assume the entire amount applied to the lips could be ingested.
At 57 mg a day, that works out to approximately 21 grams of lip product over a year.
That doesn't mean everybody literally swallows 21 grams of lip balm every year. Actual use varies enormously. It does illustrate something important though....that lip products are a repeated potential route of ingestion in a way that face cream or body butter simply isn't.
Does lip balm have to be gluten free if you have coeliac disease?
This is where a little perspective helps.
Coeliac Australia explains that gluten must be swallowed to cause harm and isn't absorbed through the skin. It also notes that the amounts of gluten found in some lipsticks can be very small and that a considerable amount would need to be swallowed to become significant.
At the same time, organisations including the Celiac Disease Foundation recommend checking products used around the mouth because they have the potential to be unintentionally ingested. Lipstick, lip gloss and lip balm are specifically identified as products worth verifying.
For someone who already has to strictly avoid gluten, choosing a lip balm without gluten-containing ingredients is therefore a very simple way to remove an unnecessary source of exposure.
Gluten can appear under names you might not recognise
Reading cosmetic ingredients can also be harder than reading a food label.
Rather than simply seeing the word "wheat", botanical and cosmetic ingredients may be listed using their INCI or Latin names.
Ingredients worth checking for can include:
- Triticum vulgare – wheat
- Hydrolysed wheat protein
- Wheat germ or wheat germ extract
- Hordeum vulgare – barley
- Barley extract
- Malt or malt extract
- Secale cereale – rye
- Avena sativa – oats
Oats require particular consideration for Australians with coeliac disease, as Coeliac Australia does not currently include oats as part of a gluten free diet.
If you can't establish where an ingredient has come from, ask the manufacturer. That's considerably more useful than trying to decipher an ambiguous ingredient yourself.
"Natural" doesn't automatically mean gluten free
This is worth remembering.
Natural. Botanical. Organic. Clean.
None of these words tell you whether a lip product contains gluten.
In fact, a very natural looking formula could deliberately contain wheat germ oil, barley extract or another grain derived botanical.
This is why we believe the complete ingredient list matters more than the language on the front of the tube.
Turn it over. Read what is actually in it.
Why we keep our lip balm formulas simple
At Skin Botanist, we've always preferred short formulas where every ingredient has a reason for being there.
Our Bare Lip Balm and Kids Lip Balms for example, contains just five ingredients:
- Certified Organic Shea Butter
- Certified Organic Coconut Oil
- Beeswax
- Certified Organic Apricot Kernel Oil
- Vitamin E
No flavour. No fragrance. No essential oils. And no wheat, barley, rye or oat-derived ingredients in the formula.
Our Botanical Lip Balm uses the same simple foundation with vitamin E, peppermint and rose geranium added for its light botanical scent. Again, the complete formula is published so you can see exactly what you're putting on your lips.
Because when a product is going directly onto your mouth, we think transparency matters.
A simple lip balm checklist for people with coeliac disease
Before buying your next lip balm:
Read the full ingredient list.
Don't rely solely on words like natural or sensitive.
Look for wheat, barley, rye and their botanical names.
Pay particular attention to Triticum vulgare, Hordeum vulgare and Secale cereale.
Consider oat-derived ingredients too.
Australian recommendations around oats and coeliac disease differ from those in some other countries.
Check with the manufacturer if you're unsure.
They should be able to tell you where an ingredient comes from and, ideally, answer questions about their manufacturing process.
Choose simple formulas where possible.
Fewer ingredients don't automatically make a product better, but they do make it considerably easier to understand what you're using.
The bottom line
If you have coeliac disease, you don't need to become afraid of everything in your bathroom cupboard.
Gluten isn't absorbed through healthy skin. The issue is ingestion.
And that's precisely why lip balm deserves a little more attention than most skincare.
It is applied directly to the mouth, repeatedly, day after day. Some of it will inevitably be swallowed. Choosing a lip balm made without gluten containing ingredients is a simple precaution that removes one more thing to think about.
This article is general information only and isn't a substitute for individual medical or dietary advice. If you have coeliac disease, speak with your doctor or accredited practising dietitian about your individual requirements.
