How to Keep Your Lips Kissable

Guest post by Selina Torres

In the immortal words of Ned Stark, “Winter is coming.”

You know winter. It’s that season where skin gets all dry and flaky and start shedding skin cells like it’s going out of style. Wait, when was shedding skin cells ever in style? My lips don’t fare much better. They get so chapped that I’m pretty sure I could use them as heavy grit sandpaper. I spoke with a dermatologist recently and picked up some fantastic tips for keeping my pucker pretty this winter.

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Eat Your Way to Healthy Lips

Bear with me on this one, it will make sense in the end. Although the characteristics are slightly different than say, the skin on your elbow, the skin on your lips is still skin. Consequently, your kisser benefits from all the same vitamins as the rest of your lovely epidermis.

So what vitamins do you need for healthy lip skin?

– Vitamin A is necessary for skin maintenance and repair, leading to a reduction in fine lines and wrinkles. It also helps to prevent dry skin. Some tasty sources of vitamin A are:

Eggs
Sweet Potatoes
Milk
Carrots
Apricots

– Vitamin C aids tissue repair, helping your lips recover from sun damage. These fabulous fruits and veggies are the best places to find vitamin c:

Bell Peppers
Broccoli
Kiwi
Oranges
Strawberries

– Vitamin E fights the effects of free radicals, helping to keep skin smooth. You can find vitamin e in these delicious snacks:

Sunflower Seeds
Almonds
Peanuts
Dried Apricots
Green Olives

A Little Exfoliation Never Hurts

Exfoliation is wonderful for sloughing off dead skin and letting the new layer underneath breathe. However, you should always be as gentle as possible when exfoliating. If you scrub too hard, you’ll just end up doing more harm than good.

Here’s a recipe for my favorite moisturizing lip scrub:

What You Need:

3 Tablespoons Finely Ground Sugar
3 Tablespoons Avocado Oil
1 Tablespoon Raw Honey
1/2 Ripe Avocado

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a small glass mixing bowl, and blend well.
Using your fingers or a soft-bristled toothbrush, rub a pea sized amount of scrub in a circular motion across your lips.
Place leftover scrub in an airtight container and store in the fridge for later use.

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The Perfect Balm

Finding the perfect lip balm isn’t as easy as it sounds. Sure, moisturization is key, but it’s not the only thing you should be looking for. Since the skin on your lips is so thin, sun damage can actually cause it to become thinner. It’s important to combat the damaging effects of the sun by using lip balms that contain SPF 15 or higher.

We apply lip balm to moisturize our lips, but you may be surprised to find many balms contain ingredients that do exactly the opposite. Avoid balms containing menthol, phenol and salicylic acid. These ingredients cause an invigorating tingling feeling, but they actually strip off protective layers of skin, leaving your lips vulnerable to the elements. Another thing to avoid is strong fragrances as they can be irritating to the delicate skin on our lips. It sucks, I know, since scrumptious scents are one of the coolest things about lip balm.

My new personal favorite balm — which manages to fulfill all three previously mentioned characteristics and add a hint of color– is glominerals Protective Lip Treatment.

Stop Hurting Your Lips!

There’s no use denying it, I bet you’ve been guilty of one of the following harmful habits at least once:

– Stop licking your lips. As the moisture from your salvia evaporates, the skin on your lips dries out even more.

– Stop chewing on your lips and picking at dead skin. This only causes cuts and sores to become worse, possibly resulting in scars.

– Stop smoking! Smoking causes wrinkles by narrowing blood vessels in the outer layers of skin causing less blood flow and reducing the amount of oxygen and nutrients that get to the skin.

– Stop sun and wind damage by applying a thick balm with SPF 15 or higher.

It’s not hard to have healthy, kissable lips. All you need is a tasty snack, a little exfoliation and a smidge of hydration. In the end, winter won’t have anything on you!

About the author : Selina Torres uses her perfectly moisturized pucker to alternately mouth off and kiss her long suffering boyfriend. When she’s not harassing the poor fellow, she writes freelance for Glisten, a delightful new skin care company.