How To Prevent Chapped Lips
Our Tips are the Balm!
With winter on its way, chances are if you are not already suffering from dry or chapped lips – you probably will be within a few short weeks. The moisture is leaving the air while you are blasting the heat in your car.
Did you know that the skin on your face has around 16 opaque layers of cells, both dead and alive? Your lips, on the other hand, have just three layers of skin and are actually translucent. The lips get their reddish color from the subsurface layer, the mucous membrane (which also gives lips their pout). The capillaries packed into the mucous membrane layer of your lips push close to the skin on the surface of your lips, revealing the blood within [source: Lip Augmentation]. Push your lips tight together in a mirror and then release the pressure. They go from a light skin color back to red again as the blood returns to the capillaries.
No matter if you are at work or at home, dry lips are painful and un-attractive. So how can you prevent those dry, chapped, and painful lips that you have suffered from each winter? Here are some of our favorite tips!
- Stop Licking Your Lips – what? Yes, really – stop! Licking your lips only makes them moist for a minute. As the saliva on your lips dries, it removes the moisture that your tongue added. Your saliva is composed partly of enzymes that are designed to initiate the process of breaking food down for digestion [source: Gardner].
- Drink Water – Drinking water seems to solve nearly everything these days. If you become dehydrated the skin cells of you lips will dry out. By drinking the standard eight, eight-ounce glasses per day you will be keeping your body (and your lips) hydrated.
- Breathe Through Your Nose – A change like this can make all the difference in the world. Breathing through your mouth can actually dry out your lips. This tip can be especially tough if you have a cold however and your nose is plugged.
- Invest In A Quality Lip Balm – We suggest our Lip Balm that has a delicious pomegranate flavor and contains Vitamin E, Bees Wax and other natural emollients used to help soothe and hydrate dry lips.
