Best Lip Balms for Smooth, Hydrated Lips

Vaseline needs no introduction, but this little cutie of a lip balm by the classic brand does. It’s our top pick because we all agreed it’s seriously hydrating, smooth, and long-lasting. The fact that it comes in a small jar that you can fit in your pocket, boasts a light, sweet scent, and costs just $3 adds to its appeal. 

Hydration: This balm went on smoothly and felt a bit thick, but there’s no denying it was intensely moisturizing and seemed capable of shielding our lips from drying factors like cold air. “By far the most hydrating lip balm I have ever tried,” Jodhaira said. “It goes on smoothly, isn’t drying or sticky, and is long-lasting.”

Longevity: If your experience is anything like ours, this balm will keep your lips smooth for hours. “This lip balm’s lasting power felt longer than many of the other lip balms here,” Arianna said. “I only needed to apply the balm around twice a day to achieve well-hydrated lips.” Jodhaira found herself applying this balm after a shower, a meal, and right before bed. And it proved to be an effective overnight lip treatment as well. “If I used it before bed,” Aileen said, “my lips still felt hydrated in the morning.”

Scent: Most of us agreed that the crème brûlée scent was “sweet and light,” as Jodhaira put it, and not overpowering. But Lauren thought it smelled “synthetic and plasticky,” which is something to keep in mind if you’re sensitive to scent. 

Form: This was the only lip balm we evaluated that comes in a small, cute jar (a mini version of the traditional Vaseline jar). Even though everyone at your dinner party will coo when you pull this out of your purse, the packaging has pros and cons. “It’s super-moisturizing, not sticky or greasy, and the little tub is so adorable,” Jodhaira said. “The only thing I don’t love is that I have to stick my possibly dirty finger in the tub every time I want to reapply.” Aileen agreed: “I just wasn’t crazy about using my finger to apply it, and it’s not something I would keep in my purse because the package is not really great for a quick touchup.”

Under makeup: We were split about wearing this balm under lipstick. I found it too thick and had to wipe off some of it first. The upside, though, is that my lips were very soft, and the product went on well. Aileen had a similar experience: “I didn’t really like it for makeup prep. It was too slick for makeup to stick to.”

When my 13-year-old daughter caught me evaluating Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm, she squealed, a testament to this brand becoming a TikTok phenomenon. Its $24 price made us all a bit skeptical, but it mostly lived up to the hype. 

Hydration: We all agreed that this balm went on smoothly, but it didn’t get a unanimous vote of approval for how well it hydrated. While Jodhaira, Aileen, Arianna, and I found it moisturizing, Lauren said it had the “thinnest glossy formula” and a “slippery, oily feel, with the tiniest bit of stickiness.” Aileen also found it sticky and said that while it wasn’t drying, “it just didn’t really seem to do much hydrating.”

Longevity: Lauren and Aileen’s experience with this balm’s hydration may have something to do with its longevity; both said it didn’t last very long. The rest of us found that although it didn’t have the staying power of Vaseline, it lasted a few hours. “I usually apply Aquaphor on my lips before bed,” Jodhaira said, “but I’ve been using the lip balms we’re testing instead, and so far, this is the only one that has made my lips still feel moisturized when I wake up in the morning.”

Scent: We all loved the light, pleasant, mild vanilla scent.

Form: This balm comes in a classic tube, but the packaging is larger than that of some of the other products we evaluated. As a result, even though you’re paying more, it feels like you’re getting your money’s worth. “I really like the applicator on this,” Jodhaira said. “It feels of a better quality than the similarly designed E.L.F. Squeeze Me Lip Balm” (below). 

Under makeup: Aileen and Yael were happy with the results. According to Yael, it did well under lip gloss. Aileen said: “It actually did create a nice primer for lip liner and lipstick. Again, not hydrating but not so slick, so I liked it as a lip primer more than a balm because my lip pencil and lipstick went on very smoothly with it.”

Like Vaseline, ChapStick is a brand with a long, storied history. I’ve always associated it with the classic cherry ChapStick of my youth, so discovering this richer balm was a delightful surprise. We couldn’t agree on its hydration, longevity, and taste (yep, taste), which knocked it out of the runner-up slot, but it deserves an honorable mention. 

Hydration: “It was thin yet had that smooth/sticky staying power—without actually being sticky,” Lauren said. “It was such an interesting and surprising, delightful feeling.” The rest of us agreed that it went on smoothly, but Jodhaira and I had similar experiences, feeling it actually made our lips drier than they had been. 

Longevity: Jodhaira and I felt that we had to apply this balm several times a day (“hourly,” she said), but the other evaluators found it lasted for a few hours. “[It] really seemed to hydrate my lips,” Aileen said. “They definitely felt smoother. I used it before bed and could still feel it a bit in the morning.”

Scent: We had an interesting mix of opinions here, with some of us experiencing a hint of “cake batter” or, as Jodhaira said, “Sugar Daddy candies I used to buy at the bodega in Brooklyn.” Aileen and Arianna didn’t detect any scent at all, proving it was light enough to go unnoticed by some people. But a few of us thought it had an off-putting taste. “I didn’t like the taste, couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, [but] it was odd,” Yael said. Lauren agreed. “It tasted slightly of mineral oil,” she said. “I’d say neutral to slightly unpleasant.”

Form: This balm comes in a tube that’s much thinner than those from E.L.F., Laniege, Rhode, and Summer Fridays, though it contains the same amount of product as E.L.F. 

Under makeup: Yael and I thought it worked relatively well under lipstick and gloss. (I still had to wipe a bit off before applying lipstick.) Aileen said that it was so hydrating that lipstick didn’t stick well to it but that it worked great with a lip liner under it. “Also, it had such a nice shimmer that I even felt it looked like I had lipstick on when I didn’t, so I really liked it just on bare lips,” she said.

Like ChapStick and Vaseline, Eos is another relatively low-priced lip balm that provided great hydration and lasting power, with a thinner consistency than many others on this list. But we couldn’t get past its overpowering scent. 

Hydration: The good news was that this balm hydrated everyone’s lips, went on very smoothly, and wasn’t goopy. “It was smooth and the slightest bit waxy, not very thick,” Lauren said. “It felt hydrating on the surface, but it wasn’t clear if it was penetrating.” 

Longevity: Here’s where we differed slightly. Four of us thought this balm lasted a long time. “I was so pleasantly surprised with how much I loved this lip balm,” Jodhaira said. “It’s super-long-lasting and kept my lips hydrated quite literally all day.” But Yael and I found that we had to reapply it about every hour to feel like our lips were still smooth.

Scent: This balm’s scent received a nearly unanimous thumbs-down. I couldn’t stomach the intensely sweet vanilla cake smell. Aileen called it “cloyingly sweet,” and Lauren said she didn’t care for it, either. “Smells like frosted sugar cookies—the kind from the supermarket with the sprinkles,” Jodhaira said. “The scent is way too strong, and the more I applied it, the more I started to hate it.”

Form: This was one of two stick lip balms in our evaluations (Aquaphor, below, was the other). Aileen said the pink packaging was “cute,” but looked more like it was designed for a teen or tween. I found the stick bulkier than tubes, and it actually broke; two parts of the stick detached from each other after a few days of using it. I was still able to use the balm, but I had to put the stick back together each time.

Under makeup: Here’s where this lip balm excelled. It’s so much thinner than the others that I could apply lipstick, gloss, or lip liner right over it, and it didn’t disrupt my makeup.

We agreed that this balm stick from Aquaphor made our lips feel smooth and hydrated, but it was also described as “thin,” “waxy,” and “kind of boring.” Boring can be good sometimes, particularly if you prefer this balm’s unscented formula and bulkier-than-usual stick packaging, which seems like it would last a long time. But Jodhaira and I routinely use the Aquaphor Healing Ointment that comes in a tub and found it longer-lasting and more hydrating than the stick. This balm was also described as “not great” under makeup.

This lip balm by E.L.F. went on smoothly for us all and felt hydrating for most of us. But when Jodhaira checked her reflection before going out, she noticed a “big glob” of it had accumulated in the center of her lips. Most of us had to reapply it several times a day, and the very sweet vanilla scent was described by Lauren as “somewhat repulsive.” “I wouldn’t seek it out,” Aileen said. “I guess it would work in a pinch, but it wasn’t very hydrating and not very good under makeup, so I really can’t see purposefully buying this.”

There’s no doubt that this lip balm by Laneige is moisturizing, but we also found it to be sticky and tacky, at least until it was absorbed. “It felt greasy to me, like my lips felt slick after I applied it,” Jodhaira said. “I sometimes apply jojoba oil to my skin in the winter because the central heat in my building is so drying, and this feels like I just did the same to my lips. It just sat there without actually ‘healing’ my chapped lips.” We loved the scent, though—a trace of vanilla and baked cookies. It was okay under makeup, but most of us were lukewarm about whether we’d purchase it again. As Aileen said, “$19 is a lot for a lip balm, and it didn’t perform so well that I would purchase it on my own.”

We were all excited to try this trendy lip balm from its celebrity founder, Hailey Bieber, and it was a favorite for Lauren and me—but we were in the minority. Our colleagues found it to be too sticky, goopy, and not as hydrating as the others. “On the first day of use, my lips were peeling, which is not usual for me with regular lip balm application,” Arianna said. “On the second day, however, it seemed to work a bit better, and my lips felt soft/hydrated.” 

I loved how it looked under lip gloss with a little lip liner (it has a nice natural shine all on its own), and Yael agreed that it was “definitely good prep under gloss.” It’s also unscented, with no weird taste. It’s more expensive than most of the other balms, but its tube packaging is also larger (similar to Summer Fridays, though the Summer Fridays balm contains more product). Still, it failed to capture us enough to catapult it to the top four. “It was a little goopy when applied, and I saw no huge reason to spend this much on a balm,” Aileen said. “It wasn’t a miracle treatment. It did make my thin lips look a tiny bit fuller, but not so much that I would use this regularly.”