We know to watch what we say as there is power behind our words. Local lip balm company, Kind Lips, provides a way for us to be reminded several times a day.

In 2017, after years of obsessively searching for a lip balm that would truly work, founder Josh Neumann set out to create the perfect one. He researched the ingredients in his favorite brands, compiled a complete list, then started to remove anything that was not natural. He then began cooking small batches on the stove in his kitchen using only organic ingredients and revised the recipe until he created what he deemed was the perfect lip balm.

But Neumann wanted to take it one step further. Years prior, he had heard about a study using rice, performed by Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto. Emoto put cooked rice and water in three beakers; every day over the course of a month he would tell one beaker thank you and that he loved it; the next he called an idiot and that he hated it; and the third he ignored all together. After a month, the first beaker of rice started to ferment and had a pleasant odor; the rice in the second beaker turned black; and the rice in the third beaker began to rot. Neumann determined that he would pray over his lip balm as it was made in order to bless it. 

He shared this idea with his mother who responded, “You will be great at whatever you do.” The next morning he received a call from her at 6:30 a.m. saying that she had the most vivid dream of her life. In the dream, Neumann had gotten in a terrible fight with his sister and as punishment his mother made him write repeatedly “The law of kindness is on my lips.” With each sentence the words “kind” and “lips” leapt off the page, leaving her to believe that he was to name the product Kind Lips, and that the product was for everyone.

As a child, Neumann was taught that for every dollar he earned, he was to tithe 10 cents to a church or charity. As an adult, he continued to follow this practice, but always wanted to increase his giving to 20 percent. He now commits 20 percent of the profit from Kind Lips to charities that focus on anti-bullying campaigns, including PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center which provides educational resources to schools to help prevent bullying through kindness, acceptance and inclusion, and Youth Frontiers, an organization that brings kindness retreats into schools throughout Minnesota.

It wasn’t long before a teacher reached out to Neumann to report how her classroom changed after purchasing Kind Lips for each of her students. She was seeing an increase in bullying behavior, like name calling and gossiping, in her grade school classroom and wanted to find a way to remind her students to be kind. In a very short time her students began reminding each other to put their Kind Lips on when they were saying unkind things to each other.

Neumann was so impressed with the strategy that he set out to create curriculum for elementary, middle and high school students. He provides wholesale pricing of the lip balm and free curriculum for schools to use to implement in their classrooms. When needed, he has contributed the lip balms at no cost. To date, Kind Lips has donated over $25,000 to charities and over 30,000 lip balms to schools.

“My hope is that every time someone applies Kind Lips, they remember to say something kind,” shares Neumann. “Just this one small step can change everything for someone.”

Cost: $5 each or five for $20. To learn more, visit KindLips.com.