If you’re suffering from dry lips, keep reading. Here’s how to heal dry, chapped lips–and why clean skincare may be the key to keeping them soft and comfortable, all season long.
Fall is finally here, and just like the leaves on the trees, our skin undergoes changes this time of year that can leave it feeling dry, irritated, and all around uncomfortable.
Perhaps no skin suffers as much during the cold, dry months as the delicate skin on our lips–and when our lips are dry, chapped, and inflamed, it’s hard to focus on anything else.
If you’re suffering from dry lips, keep reading. Here’s how to heal dry, chapped lips–and why clean skincare infused with several oils may be the key to keeping them soft and comfortable, all season long.
What are the symptoms of chapped lips?
If you have chapped lips, you’ll no doubt be aware; they make it hard to forget! Chapped lips begin with dryness, and can lead to cracking, peeling, and inflammation of delicate lip skin. They can become more red and feel taught and uncomfortable, leaving you wishing you could slather them in moisture to help calm them down.
Why do lips get chapped?
The skin on the lips differs from the rest of our skin because it lacks oil glands. On the face and body, our oil glands produce sebum–a mix of oil and soft waxes–to keep skin supple and help form our skin barrier, which keeps water in and harmful elements (bacteria, debris, etc.) out.
Our lips don’t make sebum, so they are susceptible to becoming dry and chapped. In addition, the skin on our lips is extremely thin, making it more sensitive to changes in our environment, like the arrival of colder, more arid air.
But it’s not just the weather that can aggravate lips and cause them to become dry and chapped. Sensitivities to certain ingredients like salt or hot spices can cause lips to become inflamed; salt can also draw water away from the lips, leaving them to become dehydrated.
Overall dehydration can lead to dry, chapped lips, as can sensitivity to certain ingredients in toothpaste, like sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate (SLS), which helps toothpaste to foam but can be irritating to sensitive lips. Some medications or skin treatments can also impact lips; retinoids or salicylic acids, for instance, or drugs such as antibiotics, chemotherapy, or antidepressants may all lead to dry, chapped lips. And, deficiencies in certain vitamins, like Vitamin B12, can show up by way of cracked, chapped, lips.
How can I heal dry lips?
The first step to healing dry, chapped lips is ensuring you’re properly hydrated. When it’s cool and dry outside, we may not be as dedicated to drinking water as we are in the heat of summer–but our bodies still need water to function at their best, and lips are no exception.
Be mindful of hydrating properly in the fall and winter months. If drinking cold water doesn’t appeal to you when it’s chilly, reach for caffeine-free herbal teas to warm you up and keep you hydrated. Another trick? Eating foods with a high water content, like cucumbers, apples (in season this time of year!), celery, lettuce, and watercress.
In addition to proper hydration, dry lips need moisture to lock in water and prevent it from evaporating. A highly emollient lip balm packed with moisturizing and calming ingredients but made without artificial fragrances or colors is key, because such artificial ingredients can cause further irritation and inflammation.
Instead, finding organic skincare that uses gentle, plant-based ingredients to nourish skin–like MASK Skincare– is the way to go.
When MASK developed its line of non-toxic beauty products that integrate seamlessly into your existing clean beauty routine, caring for lips was a central focus.
The MASK Skincare Organic Lip Stick contains some of the most highly nourishing plant-derived ingredients possible: Olive, apricot, and avocado oils, all renowned for their incredibly moisturizing properties.
In addition, this organic skincare superstar is infused with arnica flower, which is renowned for helping to ease pain and swelling–perfect for caring for chapped, dry, irritated lips. And of course, the hero product–Calendula–delivers powerful anti-inflammatory benefits and may help ease pain and redness.
It’s also moisturizing and calming to eczema and psoriasis, making this formula a favorite for targeted moisturizing on other parts of the body prone to skin flare-ups.
With peppermint oil to help heal cracked lips, antibacterial cardamom oil, and cinnamon and clove oils to help plump lips, MASK Organic Lip Stick is the non-toxic beauty essential your dry, chapped lips need to feel their best–now, and all year long.