Beauty
Why you should pick up a lip treatment this season
Lip Treatments Image by: Getty Images
Beauty
Why you should pick up a lip treatment this season
Lip treatments are the perfect remedy for depleted pouts. Here’s why you should incorporate one into your regular beauty routine.
When it comes to hydrating, nourishing and protecting your lips, lip treatments will blow your standard balm out of the water. Packed with healthy, moisturizing ingredients like shea butter, they can help repair and protect the skin on and around your lips from dryness and signs of aging. More potent than a balm, these wonders are often applied overnight or when your pout needs some extra TLC.
We spoke with Dermalogica educational manager, Charmaine Cooper, about how and why you should add a lip treatment into your everyday beauty routine.
The 411
The skin on and around our lips, called the perioral region, isn’t like the skin on the rest of our face. In fact, our lips only have three to five layers of skin—compared to the 16 layers of skin on the rest of your visage. The thinness of skin makes your lips much more sensitive to dryness, UV exposure, and aging. “We also struggle to keep the area hydrated because the only source of moisture that we have is our own saliva,” says Cooper.
Not just suffering from a loss of moisture, after the age of 30, our body slows down its production of collagen and we lose about 1% of collagen per year, which can affect your lip volume. “Many people know that the eyes are the first area of the face where we start to see visible signs of aging,” says Cooper, “but you should know that the mouth is immediately second.”
Balm vs. Treatment
A lip balm can temporarily soothe dry or chapped lips, whereas a lip treatment also adds healthy, nourishing ingredients to help protect and repair the area long term. There are many balms on the market that are made with mineral oils which can produce a saran-wrap-like effect and prevent the skin on our lips from repairing—even though they might feel softer. “Mineral oil is commonly known for clogging the skin just around the edge of the lip," says Cooper. "It may feel great when you’re putting it on your lip, especially in the dead of winter, but it’s not going to help the skin breathe.” In comparison, most lip treatments have formulas that are packed with ingredients that help improve the health of the skin instead of giving you instant gratification with no long-term results.
Best practices
Knowing that your lips are more vulnerable means doing what you can to prevent damage in the first place. Protect skin from UV exposure by applying SPF on your lips and the surrounding lip area. Using a lip treatment during your morning skin-care routine is good but Cooper recommends incorporating one into your evening routine to really help improve the skin’s appearance. “It’s about our circadian rhythm,” says Cooper. “Our body actually restores while we’re asleep and that’s when we want to be able to get these ingredients into the deeper layers of the skin.”
For thin lips
As we age, our lips may become thinner due to loss of firmness and fat cell production. Cooper notes that there is a brand new ingredient, called Indian gentian, which is known to help with the production of fat cells. “It won’t plump the lip but it does help to fill out the collapsing of the skin that you see in the form of a wrinkle,” says Cooper.
For aging lips
In addition to using a lip treatment regularly, Cooper recommends practicing massaging techniques. During your nightly skin-care routine, use two fingers to stroke around the mouth in small, circular motions to rub in product. “These massage techniques are kind of like exercise for the face and can counteract the breakdown of collagen,” says Cooper.
For dry lips
Dry, chapped lips happen to the best of us, especially in the winter months, but the key is to keep lips nourished and healthy. “If you can help to nourish the lips you’re going to help the natural healing process and give the skin the time to repair,” says Cooper. Lip treatments packed with shea butter are a great way to nourish the skin. Regular exfoliation is another way to keep lips smooth and flake-free. “You can actually encourage repair of the lips and skin by exfoliating,” says Cooper. The next time you exfoliate the rest of your face, use a mild exfoliator on the lips and then use a nourishing lip treatment afterward.
Comments