Chapped Lips

Chapped lips are lips that are dry, and rough. The skin may be peeling, or look as if it were. Severely chapped lips may even break open and bleed.

Once the lips have cracked open, then they are prone to infection, and eating may become painful as well.

Home Remedies for Chapped Lips:

Lip Balm:

Always wear protective lip balm when you are going outdoors, refrain from licking your lips, because the moisture causes them to feel dried out, then you lick again.

Saliva contains a good bit of acid, and excessive lip licking will actually promote chapped lips.

Don’t use mentholated lip balm for a prolonged period of time, because it causes a “rebound effect” causing lips to actually become more dried out.

When they become more dried out, you use more of the lip balm, and it becomes a cycle much like lip licking.

You use it more often, because lips become dried out, and lips become more dried out, because you use it more.

Fluids:

Drinking extra fluids to keep your system well-hydrated helps keep your lips moist as well. If you are dehydrated, your lips are one of the first places it will show.

Don’t expose your lips to the sun. Use a lip balm which contains a sun screen, because, unlike the rest of your body, the lips do not contain enough melanin to actually provide any protection at all against sun damage.

Beeswax And Petroleum Jelly:

Make a paste from beeswax and petroleum jelly, and apply it every time you go out into the weather. If your lips are already chapped, you can apply it as often as you like.

Just remember the things you do every day tend to prevent anything from staying on your lips very long, so reapply more often than you think you need to.

The beeswax will naturally help your lips to heal, while petroleum jelly will seal the moisture in.

Melem:

A new, all-natural product called Melem, is made of lanolin, castor oil and beeswax, and is said to be very effective.

It moisturizes the skin, reduces skin irritations, contains no preservatives, silicone, steroids, antibiotics, or antihistamines, and can be used anywhere dry, chapped skin is a problem.

Lipstick:

Wearing lipstick helps to filter out all light, because it is opaque, so if you use a lipstick containing moisturizing ingredients, you are giving your lips an effective sunscreen as well as sealing in the moisture.

Nutritional Deficiencies:

Deficiencies in B-Complex vitamins and iron can play a big part in chronic chapped lips.

Taking vitamin supplements, eating a proper diet, drinking plenty of water, and using a sunscreen (or antibiotic ointment, if they are infected) can be all the help you need to maintain healthy, soft lips.