Although these cold winter months can do a number on lips, leaving them dry and chapped, they need to be given special attention throughout the year in order to minimize wrinkles and lines, keeping them soft and young looking.
Lips, as well as the skin around your eyes, are very sensitive and need a gentle, but effective, process to maintain their appearance. As we age, the skin in these areas begins to shrink and become thinner, which makes it all the more important to get into a good regimen of nurturing your lips early on. Practicing the following suggestions will go a long way towards having beautiful, healthy lips:
- Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables
- Drink ample amounts of water (6-8 eight oz. glasses/day)
- Cut down on caffeine, as it has a dehydrating effect
- Consider taking antioxidant supplements to aid in keeping lips soft
- Give up smoking, if you currently smoke (it dries skin and reduces oxygen supply to skin)
- Use lip balm with SPF
- Apply topical moisturizers (with peptides, when possible)
- Use lemon wedges to lighten brown spots
Just as you would with the other skin on your face and body, exfoliating your lips on a routine basis helps regenerate the skin by removing dead cells. Rather than use regular exfoliants, which can be too harsh for your lips, try this:
- Apply your usual lip balm
- Wet a washcloth, then dip it into a small amount of granular sugar
- Gently scrub your lips
- Wash off lips
- Reapply lip balm
If your lips are currently dry, rough, scaly and/or show evidence of fine vertical lines, a specialized product, such as RX Systems PF Reparative Lip Gel, can accelerate the improvement of the look and feel of your lips while instituting the abovementioned steps to younger looking lips.