Basic Skincare Solutions for Dry, Cracked Lips

Dry, cracked lips are a common occurrence for almost anyone, but you don’t have to suffer through it silently or keep futilely trying product after product to find soothing relief. Working some basic lip care steps into your everyday skincare routine can go a long way to helping you deal with and know what to do when your lips become dry and uncomfortable. It begins by understanding why lips get dry in the first place.

Why Lips Get Dry

In comparison to the skin on other parts of the face, your lips have it rough, literally. Physiologically unique, the lips are predisposed to being the driest spot on your face or body. Your face has a nice, relatively thick, protective layer of skin, while your lips are virtually naked in comparison. Most of us need lots of help to keep our lips smooth, moist, and young — and thankfully, there are plenty of lip care products that do that brilliantly.

A major cause of dry lips is sun damage, which can occur even when you’re not in bright sunlight, and even when it’s cloudy. That means that during the day, you should be regularly applying and reapplying a well-formulated emollient lip balm, lip gloss, or lipstick with SPF 30 or greater as part of your skincare routine.

Basic Skincare Routine Tips for Dry Lips

The best thing you can do if you have dry lips, even if they're extremely dry, is to keep your lips covered with a rich, long-lasting, non-waxy, emollient hydrating lip balm or anti-aging lip moisturizer as part of a daily overall skincare routine. At night, it can just be a thick layer of a luscious balm; during the day, your lip care products must include a broad-spectrum lip balm with SPF 30 or greater. Sun protection is just as vital to prevent signs of premature aging of the skin on your lips as it is to prevent premature signs of aging on the skin on your face. In sunny and tropical Singapore, it’s even more important that you protect your lips all day long.

If you’re diligent about treating your lips like this, especially at night, you can renew and soften dry lips—even cracked lips—and keep them that way.

What causes Dry Lips?

Dry lips can have a variety of causes, including genetic predisposition to dry lips and environmental factors such as pollution or climate. However, your daily skincare products or even your lifestyle habits could be causing cracked, dry lips too!

A surprising cause of dry, cracked lips is using lip care products that contain ingredients such as peppery capsicum, menthol, menthoxypropanediol (an especially potent form of menthol), camphor, peppermint, ginger, mint oil, cinnamon, and fragrance (natural or synthetic), all of which can cause skin-damaging irritation. These ingredients are shockingly common in lip products, particularly those that claim to plump lips or even to care for cracked lips!

Another factor: Many lip balms, including some popular brand names, are poorly formulated, containing mostly waxes without any beneficial oils, emollients, or hydrating ingredients. These put a coating on your lips, but they don’t moisturize well, so your lips remain dry beneath despite feeling protected on top.

When our lips become dry (especially for men, who typically don’t wear lip gloss or lipstick), we tend to automatically and repetitively lick them to restore moisture, but that’s futile. Licking your lips makes them feel better for a few seconds, but it’s actually a bad thing to do. Your tongue transfers saliva from your mouth to your lips, which eats away and destroys the thin layer of skin covering the lips. This can easily become a vicious cycle, leading to painful, cracked, and even severely dehydrated lips.

Most of you also won’t be surprised to learn that cold or arid weather conditions (or spending a full day in a dry air-conditioned room) can lead to dehydrated lips, but did you know that playing musical instruments can also cause your lips to feel dry and raw? While this doesn’t mean you should stop your hobbies or move to a new environment, it does make regular lip care even more important within your skincare routine. Keeping your lips covered with the right lip care products as we discussed above will help you maintain beautiful lips all year long, through any activity.

Are Lip Scrubs Worth Using?

Some people ask about using a lip scrub or even a toothbrush to exfoliate the flaking skin that often accompanies dry lips. While a gentle lip scrub prior to applying lip balm is an option, we recommend extreme caution if you do. Any amount of abrasion damages and tears the delicate, ultra-thin skin on the lips, quickly making matters worse. For certain, do not use a toothbrush if it still has toothpaste or toothpaste residue on it — toothpaste allergies that affect the lips are more common than you think.

Can You Become Addicted to Lip Balm?

You may have heard the beauty myth that lips can adapt to or become addicted to lip balm — but the reality is that this just isn’t possible. However, if the lip balm you’re using contains irritating ingredients (and many of them do), it can make chapped lips a constant issue. The more you continue to apply such lip products, the more you’ll see dry or cracked lips, leading to a vicious cycle.

Even if a lip balm is otherwise beautifully formulated, if it contains irritating, drying ingredients, there is no way the beneficial ingredients can be of significant help. That’s why finding and using a brilliantly formulated lip balm or lip care product for dry cracked lips that won’t heal can be such a game-changer!

Find out more skincare routine tips for dry skin or discover the right lip balms and treatments for you here at Paula’s Choice Singapore.

References for this information

• International Journal of Dermatology, July 2016, pages 386–391
• European Journal of Dermatology, May-June 2013, pages 303–307
• The Australasian Journal of Dermatology, November 2010, pages 248–253
• Dermatologic Surgery, February 2005, pages 173–176
• British Journal of Dermatology, March 2004, pages 563–567