How It Started

Six months after launching Kind Lips, I received my largest order ever at the time—33 tubes. Three months later, the woman who placed the order emailed me. Nervous, I worried something had gone wrong. When we spoke, she told me she was a third-grade teacher with the most behaviorally challenging classroom she had taught in 18 years. She had bought a tube of Kind Lips for each student, hoping to teach a simple lesson about speaking kind words.

The lesson went even better than she imagined. Each student kept their lip balm in their desk, and whenever they used it, they would give a compliment to a classmate. Then something extraordinary happened: when a student acted out or said something unkind, the other students didn’t react with anger. Instead, they gently reminded them to “Put your Kind Lips on.” Those words prompted self-reflection and allowed the children to correct their behavior in a healthy, non-confrontational way.

In less than three months, her classroom transformed from the most challenging she had ever taught to one of the most well-behaved classes in 18 years of teaching. That phone call changed everything for me. As someone who studied to be a special education teacher, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this approach sooner. I realized that if a simple tool like a lip balm could create this kind of change in one classroom, it could impact every classroom.

From that moment, the mission of Kind Lips in the Classroom became clear: to give every teacher and student the tools to make kindness a habit, foster self-awareness and empathy, and create classrooms where students feel seen, supported, and empowered. By teaching children to speak kindly to themselves and others, the program addresses the root causes of bullying, self-harm, and school violence, making it part of a practical solution for safer, more compassionate schools. What started as a small act of intention has grown into a program that is helping children across schools develop positive behaviors and a culture of kindness that lasts a lifetime.