Caring for Your Lips

No one likes the feeling of chapped lips, but it’s an all-too-common phenomenon. Our lips possess the most delicate skin on our faces, so they’re even more sensitive to sunburn or to getting dried out. This is especially true when the weather is cold outside and our furnaces are going full-blast. For healthier, softer lips, take a look at the following tips.

It’s All about Hydration

To prevent dry lips before they even start, your best course of action is to hydrate. This means of course to drink more water. This may seem redundant; everyone tells us that we need to drink more for a variety of reasons. But, here’s just one more reason to get enough H2O. When you have enough water in your system, it will show in your lips. Instead of falling prey to chapped, dry skin, your lips will be hydrated.

Aside from drinking water, being hydrated also means to plug in your humidifier. If you live in a humid climate, this is not a step you really need to worry about, but for those in drier climates, it’s a must. Have it run while you’re asleep to get healthy moisture into the air. Your lips—and your skin in general—will thank you for it in the morning.

Conversely, you will want to avoid doing anything that is prone to drying out your lips: licking your lips, using long-wear lipsticks, or picking at flaky skin.

Keep Up a Regular Routine

Making some simple additions to your routine can make all the difference. Eating more fish for the hydrating omega-3s is a good option. But if you just can’t bring yourself to eat more fish, consuming fish oil is your next best option. (The doTERRA supplement xEO Mega^® is a great option here. It has powerful combination of both marine and plant-based omega-3s.)

Start to regularly exfoliate your lips with a gentle sugar scrub once a week or as needed. A quick homemade version will do the trick. See the doTERRA recipe for Sugar Lip Scrub for an example. The honey is a natural anti-inflammatory ingredient that, in addition to the essential oils, will help your lips.

Soothe and Protect

Use lip balm. Sometimes, this step seems to be an either-or argument. Either you never find yourself without lip balm, or you never use it because you’ve heard it dries out your lips. The truth is this: how effective your lip balm is for hydrating your lips all depends on the ingredients.

While other lip balms or lipsticks can contain questionable ingredients, the doTERRA SPA Lip Balm only contains the safest and most natural ingredients possible, including the natural fragrance of essential oils. As for moisturizing, all three versions of the lip balm contain the following extremely hydrating ingredients:
 

• Aleurites moluccanus seed oil from the Kukui seed
• Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride from coconut oil
• Coconut oil
• Soybean oil
• Moringa oil from the Moringa seed
• Phytoseryl Canola Glycerides from corn oil

For soft, hydrated, and healthy lips, we recommend using any of the three doTERRA SPA Lip Balms daily.

An extra tip: when you’re using the lip balm at night, make sure to put some outside of your lip line, too. This will protect the border of your lips that is most prone to being dry. It’s not the most flattering look, but the only sign in the morning will be completely hydrated lips.