Models are always on the hunt for a good lip balm, it seems. Probably because we fly so much and hop between different climates and also, most likely, because we spend lots of time outside. You wouldn’t think that models spend lots of time outside, but we do: hours and hours walking from tube station to casting, from casting to next casting, from next casting to different tube station. At my “peak” (them were the days) I used to have about eight or nine castings a day, and I worked out that I was walking – on average – seven miles. That’s really quite far, when you think that many people just hop into their car and hop out again when they get to the work carpark!

Another lip-balm-needing factor is makeup: on shoots, makeup artists will use the best colour on the lips and not necessarily the product with the nicest texture or the most comfortable finish. So you might find yourself with a beautiful red pout, but beneath said pout there’s a set of lips screaming out for a drop of water. (Ugh! What a bizarre image I have in my head of lips screaming for water!…)

A balm that is definitely being added to the “war chest” is Ceralip from La Roche Posay. LRP is fast becoming one of my favourite affordable brands – the products are no-nonsense and effective and brilliant for dried-out, stressed skin. Ceralip has been formulated for severely chapped lips and it helps to actually treat the dryness rather than just slap a coat of wax or petroleum jelly over the top. It’s great as a night treatment because it’s non-greasy and absolutely non-sticky, and for the same reasons it also works very well as a base for lipstick. I apply it a few minutes before I’m going to use lipstick and then blot the excess off with a tissue.

(If you’re having skin-dryness problems because of medication then this is also a good bet for you – have a look, too, at the Compensating Cream that I reviewed recently.)

£6.15 from Escentual.com (It’s £5.20 at the moment!)