What's your lip care routine?

Not only can they become chapped, dry and split if ignored, they’re also like our eyes – in a similar way to the eyes being the windows to our souls. But the condition of our lips can also show a few secrets too; dehydration, diet, and your age.

Luckily for us, with the correct lip care routine and habits, you can combat these negative signs and avoid those unwanted lines from ageing in the process. You see, the more you look after the skin on your lips, the easier it will be to stop fine lines, split skin and unsightly red, sore chapping.

The Purpose Of Lips

We are the only mammals to have outward positioned lips and we are all on our own when it comes to the way they look. It does seem strange to have hypersensitive, vulnerable pink tissue around our mouths. Most of us will have experienced the pain of taking a bite into your lip or some winter chap…So why do we have them?

Our lips are important when we are infants, as they help the sucking reflex so that we can consume food – and create a tight seal around our mouths so that the content doesn’t escape.

Unlike other mammals, we have a vermillion border around our lips [1] – a special feature only for us humans. This line separates the lip from the rest of our skin on our face, making our lips eye-catching and noticeable on our faces.

The colour of your lips depends on the pigment melanin – if you have a lighter skin tone, your lips will be a lighter shade of red. Why red? The colour is due to the way the skin on our lips grows. The dermis layer is more visible, meaning that the blood vessels are easier to see due to the thin stratum corneum layer. Lips are also devoid of melanocytes – the cells that produce melanin found in the epidermis, giving the reddish appearance.

The colour, however, can be affected by external factors; sun exposure, pregnancy, smoking, and certain medical conditions. Nicotine and benzopyrene in tobacco smoke cause the body to produce more melanin in the skin, which will, in turn, make the lips darken over a long period of time. Along with this colour change, when you purse your lips around the end of a cigarette, you’re creating fine lines that over time will stay, giving your mouth a more aged appearance.

How The Weather Affects Your Lips

While it is common knowledge to protect your skin from the damaging UV rays from the sun and the skin drying effects from cold weather, many of us are unaware of how these changes of weather are affecting our vulnerable lips. Our lips are more susceptible to burning and sun damage than the rest of the skin on our bodies – so you need to protect them as much as possible.

During the cold, winter months, our skin will be hit by icy winds, rain and snow – all things that can affect the condition and health of your lips. To make matters worse, when we go inside to take refuge from the harsh winter weather, we normally enter a heated, dry room. This sudden change of temperature and climate will dry out your lips, leaving them tight and prone to flaking, splitting and cracking [2]. A natural reaction to this is to lick our lips, which only creates more sore, chapped skin. Once your lips begin to feel uncomfortable, our natural reaction is to lick and bite them – leading to infection and potential cold sores.

Sort Your Lip Care Routine

How to avoid this? The answer is by introducing a powerful moisturiser to your lip care routine. SPF is extremely important when it comes to lip care but too many of us neglect our lips when in direct sunlight. Due to lips being so thin and delicate, they’re more prone to burning and drying out than the rest of our bodies.

Applying an advanced SPF moisturiser to your lips will keep the vulnerable skin protected and moisturised while you’re out in direct sunlight. It is also important to keep reapplying the moisturiser to your lips. Throughout the day we eat, drink and touch our lips with our hands, tongue, and teeth, so to ensure you’re protected, you will need to reapply the moisturiser.

What's Your Lip Care Routine? Are You Drinking Enough Water?

Water is incredibly important when it comes to looking after our bodies. Not only does it keep us alive, but it can also support your skin's elasticity and prevent those dreaded early signs of ageing; fine lines, wrinkles, and sallow skin. Water is essential when it comes to lip care and health.

Dry or cracked lips are a tell-tale sign that your body is craving hydration and begging for more water.

The average person should drink 104 ounces of water a day [3] – That's 13 cups of water to stay correctly hydrated. By consuming this much water a day, your skin and lips will thank you by appearing more soft, youthful and bright, helping you say goodbye to painful, cracked lips!

Optimise Your Lip Care Routine! Our Final Thoughts...

It is very easy to forget about our lips and so many of us take them for granted; covering them in make-up, lipsticks, picking and pulling the skin or leaving them vulnerable to fight the damaging effects of the weather.

Whatever your guilty behaviour is, we need to stay taking more care of those plump, integral facial features by optimising our lip care routine. It’s simple, just take some time to moisturise, and make an active effort to protect them from the daily aggressors.

It’s time to stop neglecting our lips and give them the same care and attention as our skin and hair by boosting our lip care routine!