Every night before bed, I wash my face, pat it dry, use my favorite toner, dab on some eye cream, and then lather on my favorite hyaluronic-acid-based serum for dewy, hydrated skin. Does anything feel missing to you? It only recently occurred to me that I tend to leave my lips out of my daily skin care routine, which is ironic since I probably complain about the condition of my lips more than any other part of my face. As anyone who’s ever been through a New York City winter can attest, it would take a miracle to prevent them from becoming dry and cracked and peeling at least once from November through May.
What I’ve found through my winters in the Northeast is that lip balm alone just isn’t enough, so I tracked down some skin health experts to see what we can do about it—and whether putting on my lips some of that fancy serum I use on the rest of my face might just do the trick.
Why our lips need just as much attention as the rest of our face.
According to Keira Barr, M.D., an integrative dermatologist and author of The Skin Whisperer, I’m not just imagining the idea that my lips take a beating during the winter. “Compared to the rest of our skin, the epidermis of our lips is much thinner, contains less of the protective pigment melanin, and has poor barrier function, making them more highly susceptible to environmental factors like sun, wind, smoking, and temperature extremes.”
So what about dehydration? As Barr explained, “The lips appear to lose water three times as fast as surrounding skin, making them more vulnerable to dehydration and dryness. When the lips become dry, skin cell turnover slows down and the lips become flaky.”
No one likes a flaky lip, so it’s important to take steps to both prevent and treat this environmental damage and dehydration as often as you can.
