Saturday, January 16, 2010

Living Better With Less... Chapped Lips




I wanted to share something with you. Some may think this has nothing to do with organizing but what I do as an organizer is geared towards lifestyle rather than strictly coming up with storage solutions.

Lately I've been running into people who suffer from chronic chapped lips. My first question to them is if they use Chapstick® which they all do. My next question is if you always use Chapstick® and always have chapped lips, WHY are you still using it? I think that stuff causes chapped lips!!

I speak from experience. Back in jr high I used Chapstick® religiously until one day I asked myself the above question. I stopped cold turkey, never to touch it again and have had chapped lips once since then (we're talking 20 years)...

To prevent chapped lips:
- always have something on your lips (lip gloss or lipstick is fine)
- never lick your lips
- after brushing your teeth (and tongue), brush your lips to exfoliate
- after exfoliating, and before going to sleep, use a moisturizing lip balm. I personally swear by Burt's Bees® Beeswax Lip Balm and Kiehl's® Lip Balm SPF 15

7 comments:

Helen X said...

Great advice!
Kiehl's lip balm #1 is my go-to lip balm. I put it on before bedtime and wake up with soft lips.

Kristin said...

Sounds silly but Lip Smackers are the best! They don't feel waxy, they're cheap and there are many with a nice light tint to them to make your lips look fresh.

laura said...

nothing silly about that!

Hasina said...

Hi Laura,
I love your no-nonsense advices. Keeping on doing something that obviously doesn't produce good results doesn't make sense at all yet a lot of people (including me sometime) are guilty of that. Great post!

sunny said...

I used to use Burt's Bees balm but then found something that works better for me: C.O. Bigelow - Cinnamint Mentha Lip Shine. Normally I wouldn't like that flavor..but I do like it here.. and it's the only thing I can wear under my long-wearing lipstick that keeps my lips from drying out.

Am quite addicted to it, actually.

CGdesigngirl said...

I was a Burts Bees lip balm fan until one of my sisters introduced me to Essence of Nature Lip Healer, which was sold at Trader Joes. Trader Joes now sells a similar one with their own label for the same price - 3 tubes for $3.
When I was a kid, I use to LOVE Lip Smackers Dr. Pepper flavor!

Sayedeh said...

I was using burt's bees too, until I realized where Lanolin comes from. I'm just not too crazy about applying oil from sheep's wool to my lips (it's also where they get some of the Vitamin D3 from as well).

Anyway, I just discovered this like 2 days ago. I'm in the middle of switching to Earth Mama Angel Baby's lip balm http://www.earthmamaangelbaby.com/mint-herbal-lip-balm.html
I loved their stuff during pregnancy and for my baby. And they rate really well on Safe Cosmetics database. So I'm hoping this will be good!

Side note: I also suffer from dry skin in general, and dry lips. But when I visited Saudi Arabia once, I had no such problem. I guess it's the weather here....?