How To Cure Severely Chapped Lips?
Many people suffer from dry, chapped and swollen lips. It’s very painful and uncomfortable too. Here are some of the causes for why lips are red, chapped and solutions to make them fleshy and smooth again.
Chapped Lips Causes
- Frequently biting lips due to stress or habit
- Too much of licking of lips
- Dehydration
- Exposure to extreme weather, heat or cold
- Dry skin conditions
- Vitamin deficiency
- Side effects of medicines
- Allergic reaction of makeup and skin care products
Preventing Chapped Lips
- Lip balms with sunscreen could be applied to prevent the lips from chapping and also protection from sun. An unflavored one will reduce lip licking habit.
- To counter dry weather conditions its best to switch on humidifier. If it’s not possible throughout the day at least at night.
- Wearing lipstick with moisturizer (creamy texture) will keep the lips moist while the matte effect one dry the lips.
- Weekly Exfoliation: To exfoliate a soft tooth brush should be used to rub the lips in circles to remove the dead skin cells. This would make the lips look fleshy and lushy. But rubbing too hard will irritate the skin.
- To prevent dehydration and those suffering from dry skin ought to drink lots of water. The recommended amount is at least eight glasses of water a day.
Cure and Remedy
- Lip Balms: Lip balms could be applied on chapped lips for healing. It should contain camphor, menthol and phenol. Most medicated sticks contain these. Using non flavored ones would discourage lip licking habit. Constantly lip licking could aggravate the situation.
- Home Remedies: Apply Vitamin E oil, olive oil, petroleum jelly or unsalted butter overnight and morning the lips would feel much better. This could be done to prevent chapping of lips too.
- Avoid use of lipstick when the lips chap or peel as there is a chance of bacterial infection as the lips become very sensitive to makeup.
If none of the above suggestions work, it’s the better to contact a doctor. The doctor would go through the person’s medical history to check whether there is underlying health condition or medicinal side effects causing the chapping of lips. The dermatologist would be able to diagnose if the chapping occurs due to make up or other products used on the skin.
Some believe using lip balms cause addiction of the skin to it due to the ingredients in them. They believe its marketing strategy to continue the sales of balm. But in reality it’s not the case. Lip balms are like moisturizing creams or hand and foot cream that the keep the lips hydrated and soft. Obliviously, on the stopping the balms the lips will no longer be as soft and it will subconsciously call for licking of lips to moisturize it. This will in turn lead to chapping of lips. Therefore, it’s suggested to continue using lip balms for attractive, smooth, fuller lips.