The Complete Guide to Healthy Lip Care

How many of you absolutely hate the feeling of dry chap lips? I know I do. And when you continue to apply chapstick or lip balm but only feel them becoming more chapped, you might be wondering, why isn't this helping? Well, it could be that you're using the wrong products with ingredients that are making your lips drier or more irritated, and therefore more addicted to applying it because the Chapstick isn't truly hydrating your lips.

So I wanted to help you understand why the skin on your lips is different than anywhere else on the body, why you feel like you're always applying lip balm or chapstick but not experiencing their benefits, and I'll share my favorite lip care products and tips.

Skin Cells and Melanocytes

Okay, so first let's break down the anatomy of lip skin and why it's different. So compared to our normal skin, lips have a much thinner protective outer layer or what we like to call the stratum corneum, and that makes them more easily exposed to outside factors. They also have a faster skin cell turnover and there aren't any hair follicles or oil glands, so that makes the skin softer but more vulnerable and also more prone to drying out.

Lips also have fewer melanocytes. So melanocytes are those cells that give our skin pigment. So in addition to having a thinner stratum corium, our lips also have no melanin to mask the red color of our blood vessels, which is why our lips have more of that natural soft pinkish red color. So your lips are very different than your facial skin or anywhere else on your body for that matter, so it's important to treat them differently with the right products. But I'll get into that soon.

Common Causes of Dry and Chapped Lips

Next I want to address the most common causes of dry and trap lips so you can try to avoid them. As mentioned, weather and outside environmental factors play a huge role in drying out your lips. Cold, windy, dry weather really suck out any moisture from your lips faster and can leave them feeling chapped.

Licking your lips can also be a huge Factor. While it can temporarily hydrate your lips, the saliva can evaporate pretty quickly. So really licking your lips can end up leaving your lips drier.

Not drinking enough water can also leave your lips dehydrated. That's a little bit more complicated but in general yes, if you're more dehydrated it'll show up on your lips.

The sun can also make the lips drier, so make sure that you're keeping your lips protected, especially when you're outside from prolong periods of time.

And then there are also certain ingredients that can dry out your lips or cause them to even have an allergic or irritating reaction, which is pretty common actually. So it's actually really important to check the ingredients of your lip care products because a lot of these ingredients are also found in chapstick or lip balms.

For example, Menthol is a popular lip care ingredient in Brands like Blistex or CarMax, so I always don't recommend those. Even ingredients like coconut oil or certain dyes and lipsticks can be irritating to the lips, which then can lead to dryness.

Then there's other things like fragrances, essential oils or certain preservatives that can cause dry lips. I have sensitive lips so I would personally avoid things like camper, eucalyptus or chemical sunscreens. Lips are actually more sensitive than facial skin, so I'm more picky about using mineral sunscreens over chemical sunscreens for the lips.

As a dermatologist I also see a lot of patients who get dry lips as a side effect of acutane. This is the most common side effect, but having the right products and ingredients to really help mitigate that is really beneficial, which brings me to your big question.

Lip Care Tips

What products and what ingredients should I be using for my dry and Cha lips? Well first, here are some general tips for you.

So you want to find a lip balm or chapstick product that has minimal ingredients that's gentle, and if it's during the day I would also try to find something that has SPF.

And then it can be hard if it's a habit, but really try to avoid licking your lips excessively. Like I said, this is going to actually make them drier and can lead to a condition called lip liquor dermatitis, which can further cause inflammation around your lips due to the damage from your saliva.

Also please don't pick the skin around your lips. It will actually not help them be less chapped.

And another tip that I think is kind of underrated is to keep a humidifier in your room because that will keep both your lips and your skin more hydrated. And there are so many humidifiers out there. You don't have to get like a big complicated one. There's like small portable ones.

Best Ingredients and Products for Lips

But more importantly, let's talk about what ingredients to look for in your lip care products.

So first you want to find something with hydrating ingredients like glycerin or hyaluronic acid.

Next you want to look for something that contains molan things like squat, shea butter, lanoline if you're not allergic to lanoline, sunflower seed oil, ceramides, castor oil. Emolient really work to nourish and moisturize the skin.

And then there are occlusives which are things like petroleum jelly or petrolatum or dimethicone. These can really seal in those hydrating and moisturizing ingredients.

I also think before applying any of these products that it helps to exfoliate your lips to kind of get rid of those excess dead skin cells, or you could do it preemptively like once a week.

And I recommend chemical exfoliant over physical exfoliant like those kind of harsh lip scrubs that are kind of grainy. I would say use a chemical exfoliant like something with glycolic acid. I love pois Choice Skin perfecting 8% aha gel exfoliant or the ordinary 7% glycolic acid toner.

I think that using an exfoliant prior to your other products really also helps prepare your lips and really absorb the other products more effectively.

There's actually a technique called lip basting. This was coined by Dr sharine Idris. I'm pretty sure she's from Pilot Talk durm. And she talks about how you first exfoliate your lips and then you want to apply a moisturizing cream or ointment like the alaor healing ointment or L Ro's coplas balm. And these will leave your lips just feeling and looking amazing and hydrated.

I just say add in that extra hydration after that exfoliation step. So after the exfoliation step add in the hydrating serum and then add in some kind of occlusive moisturizing product.

A hydrating product I really like is experiment super saturated serum. Vichi also has one, their mineral 89 serum. So the hydrating product would come after the exfoliating and then before the more occlusive product.

So as I'm filming that's the brand experiment, the one with the super saturated serum. They're also coming out with a lip care product which I'm very excited about. I'm sure it's going to be amazing and have a lot of wonderful ingredients, so stay tuned for that.

I also have a ton of my favorite lip care products that are linked in my description, but my biggest go-to occlusive products are Vaseline petroleum jelly and aqua for healing ointment.

A few other lip balms that I've been a fan of are the summer Fridays lip butter balm, lenes lip sleeping mask. This one has fragrance and Dy so it's really not for everyone, but it has great moisturizing ingredients.

I'm also a big fan of the MD solar Sciences hydrating sheer lip balm with SPF.

Recap

So whether the cold dry weather is affecting your lips or maybe you've become addicted to your Chapstick, it's really important to check the ingredients and make sure that you're not doing more harm than good to your lips.

I hope you found this video on lip care helpful. If you enjoyed this video and want to learn more about lip care and skin hair tips, just be sure to download my free gift, my top five skincare favorites. And remember to hit that like button, share this video with your friends, and subscribe to my channel to start your holistic Wellness Journey for your mind, body and skin.

Thanks for Reading.