Winter lip care tips for dry chapped winter lips
Keep your lips moisturised throughout the day. Burt’s Bees Pomegranate Lip Balm is very organic. If you’re not 16 anymore and have other worries for lips than just dryness and chapping (we’re talking FINE LINES here, ladies. FINE LINES! And LACK OF PLUMPYNESS!) then there are plenty of mainstream products that will moisturize your lips and give you an added extra. We like No7 Protect & Perfect Lip Care, which helps to moisturise and plump your pout perfectly, helps protects your skin from pollution, and also contains special anti-ageing stuff to make lips look younger and fuller.
Apply lip balm or lip moisturizer before you go to bed as well as during the day – having the central heating on while you sleep can really dry your lips out. Did you know that the first lip balm was actually earwax? It worked. It just tasted foul.
The skin on your lips is really thin, and it’s delicate. During a cold and windy winter your lips can start getting chapped and flaky and sometimes just applying a moisturizer isn’t enough. You get rid of the flaky skin on your lips without chaffing and irritating them more. Mookychick has found a way to condition and buff your lips and make them look temporarily plumper, as well, using vaseline and salt – or, if you prefer, butter and sugar. You can even stain the final smooth and pouty results with beetroot!
You know how people always talk of exercise to tone and shape their muscles and feel better? Muscles don’t just exist in your body – they exist in your face, and if you want to subtly change and preserve your face, the sensible way (ie. not plastic surgery) is to do a daily routine of facial exercises. You should use this technique for life, not just for winter – but better late than never. Start your lip exercises now!
Try not to lick your lips in Winter when you’re outside! This is a major culprit for getting chapped and flaky lips, and once you’ve started getting chapped lips, licking them only makes it worse.
Similarly, don’t bite off dead bits of skin. Did you know that women who are habitual lip chewers eat four to nine pounds of lipstick during their life?
Cracked lips could be a sign that your diet is low in B vitamins. The best sources of vitamin B are meat products, yeast, asparagus, broccoli, spinach, bananas, potatoes, milk, eggs, cheese, yoghurt, nuts, pulses, fish, wholegrain cereals, brown rice, apricots and figs, so it shouldn’t be hard to top up your vitamin B if required.
Drinking water isn’t just for the summer months. Everyone feels like drinking hot drinks in winter. Even though it feels unnatural, make sure you keep drinking water so you’re hydrated on the inside, making your skin and lips better on the outside – about 8 cups a day is ideal!
If you can, choose moisturized lipsticks. Better all round!
Keep a humidifier running in your home to prevent the air from becoming too dry. If you can’t afford that, keep a dish of water in something porous like an unvarnished clay pot on top of your radiator. This will keep the room warm, but as the water evaporates it will stop the air in your room getting too dry!
Remember that lips contain no melanin and are really quick to burn. Remember that the sun is still there in winter, even on a cloudy day, and even though it’s slighter further from the earth. If your lip moisturizer has sun care protection, so much the better.
