Moisturize with Garlic Bread

Hard times demand bold lip-balm leadership

When I was a child, I was the tycoon of a chapstick media empire.

Being disinclined to physical activity, I spent most recesses standing in a huddle with my friends—the two Michelles—and conducting executive board meetings of The Chapstick Club. This was the era of Bonne Bell® Lip Smackers, novelty chapsticks that had flavors like “ostensibly strawberry” and “expired piece of fudge.” The main Chapstick Club activity was passing around different flavors of Lip Smackers and huffing them. Sometimes, we smuggled out partial sleeves of crackers in our coat pockets and munched on them while we discussed our enterprise strategies for the third quarter.

I put myself in charge of the club newsletter. I started it mostly so I could write an advice column, “Dear Chappy,” where I would pretend to give my classmates sage advice from the perspective of a giant sentient lip balm.

I think the Michelles tried to talk me out of this, having at least enough dignity to be embarrassed. After all, no one was going to write in to ask a nine-year-old pathological liar for advice. But I was undeterred: I just wrote the questions as well as the answers.

I have tried to locate a photo of myself from this time to illustrate the small, singular mind at work, but this was the only one I could find. You may naturally wonder about the wardrobe. I have no answers for you.

The Witness Protection Program was over budget that year.

Unsurprisingly, my stint as a publisher was brutish and short. “Dear Chappy” has long since gone out of print—I blame venture capital and the rise of Facebook—just as Bonne Bell® has long since vanished in a ruddy Dr.-Pepper-scented mist. But I’m bringing the column back this week to introduce my master work—my Rumors, my Moby Dick.

Dear Chappy: Why did my girl-power lip balm brand go bankrupt?

CHAPPY SEZ: You lacked the courage to go savory, you recreant fools.

As we all know, the most potent smell in the world is the food court at Valley West Mall in Des Moines. Mall food courts are the culinary equivalent of mixing all of the paint colors together and it actually working. Sure, the result is muddy, but it’s muddy like a dirt bike—all dopamine and spite and vicious electric guitar riffs. The mall food court is the true promise of America: a Big Corporate Melting Pot.

I don’t have a prayer of chemically recreating that ur-scent of French fries and pizza and Panda Express. But if I had to pick a single smell out of a lineup—a lead vocalist—it would be the garlic breadstick at Sbarro. I haven’t had one in years, but my memory is of a steaming, doughy loafstick mossed with powdered Parmesan and basted with some butter-adjacent hydrogenated oil that pooled ostentatiously in its puckery microfolds.

Nothing short of crashing a go-kart while listening to DREAM’s “He Loves U Not” could stir in me the same early-aughts nostalgia.

A short, true story: in high school, I wrapped up a Sbarro garlic breadstick from the food court to go and tucked it in my purse while I wandered around the mall. When I tried to get it out about 10 minutes later, I realized the zipper on my purse was stuck. Rather than wait until I got home to un-stick it, I borrowed a pair of scissors from a cell-phone kiosk and cut open my purse to retrieve the breadstick.

Anyway, I can think of no better flavor to anchor an imaginary boutique line of savory chapsticks than garlic bread. I’m calling this line Mouth Punchers™, and I have approached my prototype with the discerning mind of a Chapstick Club Executive Board Member Emeritus. Which means: it can’t just be a novelty. It has to actually work.

I know what you’re thinking: do I really want to make my kissing parts smell like garlic?

Yes. Obviously.

Look, has there ever been a better time to experiment with smelling like…whatever the heck you want? If we’re all going to wear masks and stay six feet apart from each other, we should at least be allowed the meager comfort of smelling and tasting as we please. And if garlic bread lip balm makes me lick my lips constantly like a dog with a peanut butter nose—well, frankly, that’s the kind of antisocial behavior we should be encouraging, at least until our case numbers go down.

Besides, if anyone can smell my chapstick, they’re standing too close for COVID. Don’t bread on me.

There’s a glaring food safety concern I want to head off at the pass: making garlic lip balm necessarily means making garlic-infused oil, and garlic-infused oil is notorious for poisoning people. Not wanting to contract an especially shameful form of botulism, I consulted an extension service, which shall remain nameless/blameless, and followed their recommendations. Specifically, I soaked a meager mountain of chopped garlic in a 3 percent citric acid solution for 26 hours. (This sounds fussy, but wasn’t. I keep a bag of citric acid in the cupboard at all times so I can make my Kirkland gummy vitamins taste like Sour Patch Kids.)

The result was…Slightly Tangy Garlic, with all of the original bite and none of the original clostridium spores.

Garlic Bread Chapstick: It Probably Won’t Give You A Disease.™

Next, I frizzled the garlic along with some dried oregano in sunflower oil and strained the oil through a coffee filter. Olive oil would have been more traditional, but some cottage witch on the internet convinced me to go to the rich-people bodega for sunflower oil to get a more “neutral flavor” in my chapstick. In hindsight, I’m not sure what I was thinking. “Neutral flavor” isn’t what we’re going for here. 

Evergreen advice for my past and future self: you don’t have to go to the Whole Foods.

The rest is easy: melt some soft hippie shit in a double boiler and pour it into a series of tubes. I used cosmetics-grade beeswax, shea butter, breadstick oil, coconut oil, and a teeny bit of castor oil (for shine!).

You may not like my ideas. But you cannot besmirch my methods. This lip balm is wholesome, healthy, and nourishing—just like garlic bread.

An excellent gift for the inscrutable monster in your life.

The resulting chapstick has the color and scent of a Papa John’s garlic sauce with the added bonus of never having used a racial slur on a conference call. It goes on smooth and gives your lips that irresistible “just ate garlic bread” sheen. If anything, the flavor is more subtle than you’d expect—a pleasant garlic-and-oregano whiff, nothing raucous enough to offend the neighbors.

Of course, Garlic Bread is just the beginning. We can go bigger—bolder. Orange Chicken. Barbecue Beans. Ranch. There’s a whole cinematic universe of flavor out there just waiting for an intrepid soul to explore. Call me, denizens of Bonne Bell.

Until then, I’m content to make myself taste like an Olive Garden. The important thing is that here I am, 22 years later, publishing another newsletter about chapstick. If only Chappy could see me now.

A Very Special™ Yuletide Note:

This week marks a month of Haterades. How are we feeling about ‘em? If you’ve got feedback, I’m always listening at lizcook.kc@gmail.com.

If you’re enjoying this weird little newsletter, I hope you’ll consider donating (if you have the means) to keep the content free and flowing for everyone. My Venmo is @lizcookkc, and my CashApp is $lizcookkc. Deets for other platforms available on request. I have no real interest in instituting paid subscriptions, but it would be nice to be able to cover my dubious expenses—like chapstick-making kits and low-calorie IPAs.

UPDATE: you have all cleaned me out of garlic bread chapsticks! I am extremely grateful, but also a little frightened. God bless us, everyone.

S̶P̶E̶C̶I̶A̶L̶ ̶S̶E̶C̶R̶E̶T̶ ̶S̶U̶B̶S̶C̶R̶I̶B̶E̶R̶ ̶B̶O̶N̶U̶S̶:̶ ̶I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶a̶r̶l̶i̶c̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶p̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶(̶l̶i̶m̶i̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶2̶0̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶u̶b̶t̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶)̶.̶ ̶ ̶ ̶I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶p̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶(̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶?̶)̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶a̶t̶e̶,̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶w̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶y̶e̶e̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶i̶l̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶t̶m̶a̶s̶t̶i̶d̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶.̶ ̶E̶v̶e̶r̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶e̶r̶v̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶a̶r̶l̶i̶c̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶o̶u̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶t̶m̶a̶s̶.̶

Finally, thanks to all of you who have commented, shared, subscribed, or let me know you’re reading. Truly means a lot to me. Might take next week off, but will be back in 2021 to keep wrecking your aesthetic.

Love,

Liz