<strong>What it is</strong>: A cult favourite, 100 percent natural lip balm—now with broad-spectrum sun protection.

<strong>What it does</strong>: Back in the day (read: before I got into beauty writing), Burt's Bees was one of those sought-after but hard-to-find brands that I lusted after when reading U.S. magazines. They didn't advertise, and you certainly couldn't find them at drugstores like you can now—which of course only fueled my obsession with finding (and trying) their products.

Over the years, their distribution grew, and I tested A LOT of Burt's stuff (I'm a closet hippie, remember?). But I didn't jump on the lip balm bandwagon until recently. You see, I was obsessed with Kiehl's—another cult classic—and I liked the fact that their balms came with SPF. (Because let's face it: burning your lips is a royal pain... in the lips.)

But then I attended a talk by eco-beauty expert (and founder of <a href="http://www.intelligentnutrients.com" target="_blank">Intelligent Nutrients</a> and Aveda) Horst Rechelbacher, which scared the bejeezus out of me. I've <a href="http://beautyeditor.ca/2009/04/19/josie-maran-plumping-lip-gloss/" target="_blank">posted about this </a>before: We ingest whatever we put on our lips, and the pathway under the tongue is one of the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">fastest routes</span> that scary chemical substances—like the sunscreen actives oxybenzone and octinoxate—can take straight into the bloodstream. Yikes!

That's why this new product will be a summer staple for me. Not only is it just as soothing and moisturizing as the original version, but it also has titanium dioxide, a naturally-occuring mineral that creates a barrier to reflect the sun's harmful rays. So now we don't have to make the trade-off between sun protection and safety.

<em>Priced at $4.49. Available at specialty, health and drug stores across Canada.</em>