Pucker Up: The Best Tips for Taking Care of Your Lips

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! That means it’s time to pucker up and allow your lips to take center stage. Taking care of your lips may seem like a simple beauty tip, but there is also a lot of ingredients and elements causing your lips more harm than good.

Board-certified dermatologist Dr. Aleksandra Brown shared tips for your lips on a recent episode of the Ultraviolet Tide. Dr. Brown broke down which products and ingredient to use, and which to avoid.

“Lips in the wintertime dry out like crazy for a couple reasons. One, the temperature drops, then, humidity drops and it is windy. So, our lips get chapped, and we tend to lick them. Which just makes it worse.”

- Dr. Aleksandra Brown

To rectify winter chapped lips, Dr. Brown recommends applying plain Vaseline before bed, after your brush your teeth and wash your face.

For the daytime, many of the same rules for sunscreen also apply to lip balms. Lips are also very sensitive to UV rays and are just as susceptible to sun damage as the rest of your body. Just like applying face sunscreen every day, you should also apply a daily SPF lip balm.

According to Dr. Brown, “My little pet peeve. A lot of [SPF lip balms] are [only] SPF 15. You should look for lip balms with SPF 30.” She also noted you also need to reapply SPF lip balms about every hour and after you eat or drink.

Dr. Brown’s Lip Care Takeaways

Dos

• Look for products that contain petrolatum.

• Apply face SPF and moisturizers to your lips, neck, and chest.

• Seek lip balm with SPF 30 or greater.

• Apply plain Vaseline at bedtime.

• Test out lip balms until you find a product you love.

Donts

• Do not scrub your lips.

• Avoid products that contain beeswax.

• Do not pick at your lips.

• Avoid products with overpowering fragrances.

While lip balms with beeswax are marketed as helping to protect lips and retain moisture, there are thing to consider, especially if you have chapped lips.

“Beeswax can be very irritating to patients with sensitive skin. The risk of contact dermatitis from beeswax is increasing, probably because we’re over using it. If you are using your Chapstick brand with fragrances (which is also not good), or Burt’s Bees [with beeswax], you might be making the dry chapped lips problem worse.”

- Dr. Aleksandra Brown

Want more tips from Dr. Brown? Follow her on Instagram @draleksandrabrown.