When staring at shelves full of sticks, tubs and tubes all promising us the perfect pout, how do you know which Lip Balms will really help keep chapped lips at bay?Listener Kiran is a regular lip balm applier - saying she often suffers with dry or cracked lips, and recently splashed out on an expensive lip balm after seeing celebrity endorsed adverts for it online. But she isn’t sure it’s any better than her trusty tub of Vaseline.To find out, Greg Foot speaks to Consultant Dermatologist and Dermatological Surgeon Dr Emma Craythorne about lips, lip lickers, mouth breathers and the causes of cracking - as well as lecturer in pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, Dr Teresa Borrello about what is IN these lip balms to plump, smooth, or repair.All our episodes start with YOUR suggestions. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk OR send a voice note to our WhatsApp number, 07543 306807.PRODUCERS: KATE HOLDSWORTH AND GREG FOOT RESEARCHER: PHIL SANSOM

When staring at shelves full of sticks, tubs and tubes all promising us the perfect pout, how do you know which Lip Balms will really help keep chapped lips at bay? Listener Kiran is a regular lip balm applier - saying she often suffers with dry or cracked lips, and recently splashed out on an expensive lip balm after seeing celebrity endorsed adverts for it online. But she isn’t sure it’s any better than her trusty tub of Vaseline. To find out, Greg Foot speaks to Consultant Dermatologist and Dermatological Surgeon Dr Emma Craythorne about lips, lip lickers, mouth breathers and the causes of cracking - as well as lecturer in pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, Dr Teresa Borrello about what is IN these lip balms to plump, smooth, or repair. All our episodes start with YOUR suggestions. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk OR send a voice note to our WhatsApp number, 07543 306807. PRODUCERS: KATE HOLDSWORTH AND GREG FOOT RESEARCHER: PHIL SANSOM

Lip Balm

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers. In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist Sean Farrington examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt? Some of the world’s most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world’s most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand’s fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions. From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in January, 2026. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds. For this brand new series of Toast, episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode on BBC Sounds first, a week earlier than anywhere else.Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

Health & Fitness

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers. In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist Sean Farrington examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt? Some of the world’s most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world’s most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand’s fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions. From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in January, 2026. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds. For this brand new series of Toast, episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode on BBC Sounds first, a week earlier than anywhere else. Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

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