Best Ways to Prevent Chapped Lips All Year Round

In this article is a response to one of my clients uh his name is sean and he asked why he has perpetually chapped lips so if your lips are consistently being chapped no matter what you put on them especially lip balm and they start to crack they feel tight and they actually even have a white your lips are so chapped that you have this white cast over your lips you may have a condition that is called actinic colosis or colitis and basically that is a um it's long-term overexposure to the sun on your lips so on our lips we have thinner skin we don't have as much pigmentation to protect us from the long-term overexposure of the sun and so if you develop this condition typically what it looks like is it a lot of people mistaken it for just being chapped lips and and that's it and it could be but if it it's never healing it always feels tight you seem to have this white cast or film over your lips it's always flaky it's always dry and it starts to crack open and then the cracks turn into lesions or it becomes ulcerated and they just keep crack cracking open you may have this lip condition.

Common Causes and Risk Factors

Sometimes you'll see this on people who work outdoors and don't put any sun protection on their lips um and actually it's it's a slang term for it so it's like farmer's lips uh sailor lips construction worker lips and so basically it it's it's mistaken sometimes of having chapped lips plus a herpes lesion or a syphilis lesion so it can be mistaken for that so it is um it can be a precursor to skin cancer.

So here are some things or here are some factors that it's this condition is more common in so here are some factors that make you more prone to develop this condition if you are older and you're male fair complected tend to work outside for longer periods of time if your lips tend to protrude or stick out or they're full especially the bottom lip because that's where it's most common as well as if you are taking medication or have taken it for long periods of time where it makes your skin more photosensitive then you are more likely to develop this condition which is basically a precursor to skin cancer.

Difference Between Chapped Lips and This Condition

The biggest difference between chapped lips and someone who has this condition is their lips become extremely sensitive and sore and tender and then these um cracks actually start to turn into lesions that never seem to heal so here are the four grades of actinic colosis.

Grade One

Okay so the major thing that you want to pay attention to is actually the vermilion border so if your lips start getting flaky and peeling especially around the vermilion border then that's grade grade one so the vermilion border is basically the outline of your lips from where your skin changes and becomes your lips so the outer outline of your lips that is the vermilion border.

Grade Two

Grade two is when you obviously have more increasing a flakiness but the formula the vermilion border becomes kind of hardened and kind of develops like a slight crust to it um and then for some people they actually because they have so much of um it's it starts to lose that kind of like that puffiness between where the skin and the lips meet and they kind of form this like crust there's a line demarcation on the vermilion border so that's grade two.

Grade Three

Okay so grade three is again now the flakiness the tightness um the peeling has increased to the point that your lips there's not a definite line of where your lips are and you skin it actually starts to take on a more white cast a more flaky skin tone and the vermilion border has formed a kind of like a rough texture almost like for for some like like crusty so their lips are really crusty and then grade four of this is when they have that now including uh where they have these like lesions or cracks in their lips where they just don't seem to heal and if you if this sounds familiar and you go oh my gosh my lips are like this then i recommend that you go see a doctor to make sure that this is not the lip condition that you have.

Lip Treatment

So here is an example of a lip treatment this one it looks like it's not backwards but it is the ormetic balancing lip enhancement complex now it doesn't have any of the waxes in it it does have more humectants and so when i have clients usually um that would come in and their lips would be really dry i would end their treatment their facial treatment with this so here how see how it's like this and i'm gonna put it on my hand let's see if you guys can so see how it is like a gel here so it's almost like a like a sheen like a gloss it's very and so if you put this on at night after you exfoliate it's really um smooth so it really hydrates the lip so that is a good one because i know a lot of the lip balms that's out there that has a high amount of wax that doesn't add any hydration onto your lips okay so that's another suggestion.

Lip Exfoliation

The other one is if you have flaky lips then before putting something like this on a lip treatment you want to exfoliate and get all that off so you want to avoid any scrubs that are rough on your lips such as anything containing sugar salt or any nut shells anything that's jagged okay so something that is something that works better is like a mild uh exfoliant um i use this one up here i'm gonna put it up here is um it's it's a powder and you can actually control the texture of it because the more water you add the softer it gets and then you can put it on your lips scrub it on there gently and it has lactic acid which is an aha but it is hydrating it actually brings more moisture to your lips so if you use that and just kind of let it work through then take a hot washcloth or warm washcloth kind of set it on there and then wipe it off and then while your lips are still moist you add something like this to it that will work.

Tips for Prolonged Chapped Lips

Okay so if you have prolonged chapped lips which is quite common in the winter time here are some tips especially if you're starting if your lips are starting to crack open you want to wear hats outside avoid prolonged periods when you're outside you do want to put some type of lip treatment on your lips now here is where it gets tricky.

Mineral Based SPF

You want a lip treatment that has an spf but the spf you want it to be mineral based not chemical based because a lot of times whatever we put on our lips we end up just ingesting it whether we lick it off or we you know we wipe it off so i prefer a mineral base because then it's like a physical barrier that sits on top of your lips between the uv rays and your lips and so you want to look for things that have zinc oxide or zinc oxide and titanium dioxide i would avoid the chemical based sunscreens for your lips because the way chemical sunscreens work is they actually have to be absorbed into the skin.

Ingredients to Look For

Now here's the tricky part not only do you want it to be mineral based you also don't want it where it has if you look at the ingredients list and i will put some links below for some suggestions and even some of those i was like well if you have really dry cracked lips some of them aren't going to work so if they have a high if you look at the ingredients list and it has the mineral sunscreen you don't want it to have as far as the main ingredients is beeswax or some type of wax high on the list it may be lower is better and more oils and some more humectants so you're looking for a combination of three categories of ingredients.

Oh it's getting brighter yay so you want it to have emollients those are going to be oils and some type of like butters like shea butters because it you know it keeps your lips nice and smooth okay and the humectants are the things that increase the moisture on your lips so like if you see glycerin glycerin is a very good one and typically you'll see that higher up there.

Occlusive Agents

Now when a lip balm the most of the like the top ingredient is going to be like a a type of wax what wax is an occlusive agent and you do need some occlusive agents because you want to keep the moisture that you add on your lips from evaporating into the air so occlusive basically keeps the moisture in.

However if your lips are already very dry chapped and cracking open it doesn't have any moisture within the skin that's why they're cracking open and you just use let's say chapstick right the literal chapstick the reason why that doesn't work and if you put chapstick on and it just keeps flaking off that is because it's just occlusive you want a balance of the three in there.

When to See a Doctor

Now over time if your lips are getting the cracks and you're starting to form lesions on them and they just don't seem to be getting better then you may want to go see a doctor to see if you actually have developed this condition.

Cracks at the Corners of the Mouth

Now if you have cracks that are happening in the corners of your mouth and so every time you open your mouth they like break open again that is a completely different lip condition so if you have that check out this video right here and we'll see you in the next video remember makeup is an art skincare is a science.