Lanolips

Lanolips is an Australian skincare brand founded in 2009 by Kirsten Carriol, built around lanolin, the natural oil drawn from sheep's wool [9]. Its central product is the 101 Ointment, a multipurpose balm marketed for lips, dry patches, cuticles and other small skincare uses. The company frames lanolin as a "skin-identical" ingredient and pairs it with a short-ingredient-list approach to formulation.

The brand began in Australia and later expanded into the United States and Europe, with its products carried by retailers across several markets. It remains active, with new launches such as a ceramide-based balm collection featured on its homepage.

⚑ Thinner sourcing. The article relies largely on the brand's own statements (T2–T3). Glowpedia is seeking independent sources.

Lanolips was created by Kirsten Carriol, who grew up partly on a family sheep farm in Lucindale, South Australia [7]. According to the company, her father, a scientist working in molecular biology and genetics, taught her that lanolin from wool "mimics human oils," which the brand presents as the origin of its central idea [6]. As a child, Carriol has said, lanolin was the only ingredient her parents used on her lips and skin.

The brand's founding moment is tied to a long-haul flight on which Carriol found herself without lip balm, an episode the company describes as the "light bulb moment" behind the product [6]. The result was a range built on ultra-pure lanolin, launched in 2009 with the 101 Ointment at its centre. The company's own heritage page connects the brand to a longer family history of sheep farming in Australia.

The 101 Ointment lip balm range launched in Australia in 2009. In 2016, Lanolips introduced its first United States collection through the retailer Net-a-Porter, a step that coincided with wider press attention in the American market [7]. From its Australian base the brand grew into a multi-region operation, selling through its own websites for the Australian, US and European markets alongside third-party retailers.

Lanolips positions itself within "clean beauty," and the company states that "nature provides us with the most powerful ingredients of all – and that a short ingredients list is a good ingredients list" [2]. Its stated mission, in the founder's words, is to make "the most natural – and magically simple – lanolin lip & skincare in the world" [6]. The brand summarises its identity with the phrase "Farming + Love + Lanolin," and uses the tagline "The World's Best Lip Balms."

Central to that positioning is lanolin itself, which the company describes as a natural oil that "closely mimics the lipids in human skin" and that "absorbs, flexes and restores the skin barrier" [1]. The brand emphasises that its lanolin is sourced from Australian and New Zealand sheep, a sourcing choice it says has been deliberate from the start.

The brand's signature product is the Original 101 Ointment Multipurpose Superbalm, a lanolin-based balm marketed for many small uses across lips and skin. The line has since broadened to include tinted and flavoured 101 Ointment Multi-Balm variants, a 12 Hour Overnight Lip Mask, a Hyaluronic Lip Oil, and a more recent Ceramide Milkshake Balm collection. Alongside lanolin, the formulas draw on ingredients such as hyaluronic acid and ceramides.

Lanolips centres its products on what it calls "Ultra Medical Grade" lanolin, a purified form of the ingredient that the company links directly to the founder's scientific upbringing. The 101 Ointment carries the National Eczema Association's Seal of Acceptance, and the brand states its formulas are free from parabens, petrolatum, mineral oil and sulphates [8].

Claims for lanolin's moisture-holding capacity differ across sources. The retailer Cult Beauty describes the 101 Ointment as "able to hold up to 200% of its weight in moisture" [8], while a figure of up to 400% appears in material from the brand's own sustainability page [3]; the two figures are not reconciled.

Lanolips describes lanolin as a renewable by-product of wool washing, noting that sheep are shorn annually for their health and that the oil is extracted during the cleaning of the wool. On this basis the company presents the ingredient as a sustainable resource.

The brand states that it is approved by Cruelty-Free International and accredited through its Leaping Bunny Programme [2]. It says it does not test on animals or commission others to do so. On packaging, the company reports using FSC-certified boxes, plant-based soybean and vegetable inks, and sugarcane and post-consumer recycled plastics for many tubes, along with steps such as phasing out gold tube caps and plastic blister shells [3].

Lanolips has drawn editorial coverage in titles including Vogue UK and People, which the brand collects on its press page. In 2016, Fox News featured the brand in an article on lanolin-based skincare, naming several celebrity users, among them Sienna Miller, Courtney Love, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Drew Barrymore [7]. Aggregated reporting also credits the 101 Ointment with best-lip-balm recognition from publications such as Tatler, Harper's Bazaar and InStyle, though specific dates are not established. Cult Beauty has described the 101 Ointment as a "cult classic" and "multitasking hero" [8].

Lanolips is an active brand operating across multiple regions, with direct-to-consumer sites for Australia, the United States and Europe. Its most recent visible activity includes the launch of a Ceramide Milkshake Balm collection promoted on its homepage.