This post is by Bernie Carr, apartmentprepper.com

Many women carry at least one tube of lipstick in their purses.  I’ve admitted to having makeup in my bug out bag so I thought it would be interesting to figure out emergency uses for this ubiquitous item.

Emergency firestarter

Lipsticks main ingredients is petrolatum and this would make great firestarter.  I experimented with using lipstick to help start a fire and it worked.

Write a message

If you find yourself wanting to write a message but have no pen or pencil, you can use lipstick to write a message or draw an arrow.

Lip or Skin Balm

Though the main purpose is for color enhancement, lipstick contains moisturizers and many contain sunscreen.  This can be used to prevent chapped lips and sunburn.   Of course if you are trying to avoid undue attention or trying to look as obscure as possible, bright red lipstick may not be advisable.   However, if you are alone and don’t need to worry about appearances, it’ll do in an emergency.

Camouflage

The brownish shades can potentially be used as a coloring agent to camouflage something.

Grease or lubricant

Again, because of the oils contained in the lipstick, you can use it to lubricate gears.

Barter

With all these uses, someone is bound to want one – you may be able to use lipstick for barter.

Uses for Lipstick Containers

Empty lipstick tubes can be recycled and reused:

• Use as a pill container
• Hide emergency cash
• Store strike-anywhere matches

Now that we have proved it has multiple uses, we can justify that lipstick does deserve a place in the bug out bag 🙂

 

© Apartment Prepper 2013

For beginning preppers