Dry Lips 101: Why Vaseline Isn't Working for You

Dry lips are painful, attention grabbing and uncomfortable. They flake, they split and they hurt. When your lips are dry, kicking them back to happy can be a hard task. Especially if winter has set in. Dry, cold air, means dry, sore lips. As the central heating goes up, your lip hydration goes down. As your gloves, coat and hat get pulled out of summer retirement, your lips flake, peel and crack.

But my friend, it doesn’t have to be this way. If you suffer from chronically dry lips, you need this 1 secret weapon in your dry lip treatment arsenal. It gets to work instantly and.. with 2 weeks of use, you’ll be saying dry lips who? What… me? Never…

Dry Lips: Why do You Have Them?

Out of all the skin on your body, your lips is the most vulnerable. Dry lips strike quickly because the skin on your lips is extremely thin. Skin has 1 primary purpose in life and that’s to put a triple combination lock on top of your skin’s inner hydration levels. It stops drying irritants from entering and it stops hydrating water from leaving.

Skin everywhere else apart from your lips has a lot of layers helping it to do this. Anywhere else on your body, the top layer of your skin has between 15-20 cellular layers. If water escapes through 1, it has another 15 triple combination locks to crack. Water, moisture and skin vital hydrators are going nowhere.

Your lips however are a different story… they only have 3 to 5 cellular layers. The reason why your lips look red, you can literally see through your skin.

Not only are your lips very thin, they also come into contact with water, often. Now, water, you might think is a good thing but, there’s a catch, water is only hydrating to your skin if it is bound by other ingredients aka hyaluronic acid. Have you ever gone swimming to feel dry, rough and crinkly after? What about being sat in the bath too long? Did you need a good slather of moisturiser? How about doing the dishes, do you have a dry skin hand cream on tap for after?

See my friend, you know this already. Water from the outside, dries your skin…. and your lips come into contact with it regularly.

You drink water, you eat it and you lick or purse your lips. All of these things cause you dry lips.

Finally your lips are always dry because they don’t have pores. Pores release skin conditioning, water-locking, moisturising oils and your lips have none.

How do You Stop Dry Lips?

Imagine leaving a small glass of water in the sun all day. Or putting a pan of boiling water on the stove. Without anything to lock the water in, it escapes quickly. By the end of the day, your small glass of water has been drunk by the sun and your pan of boiling water has boiled dry.

However, put a lid on your water or put a lid on your pan and with 1 small change, your tides have turned. Water is locked in… there is no escape.

Treating your dry lips needs a similar approach.

To banish dry lips, you must re-form a water barrier and re-condition the skin underneath it.

Most people turn to Vaseline… but, it is not the most effective and questionably it does not help your skin re-condition.

Instead stopping your dry lips is about this 1 secret ingredient – lanolin.

What Is Lanolin?

Lanolin is a natural ingredient with superhero worthy skin soothing and softening skills. It doesn’t just sit on top of your dry lips, it absorbs in. Lanolin helps your dry lips reform a water barrier. Lanolin softens and conditions dry,

Looking at nature is a great way to find skincare ingredients which work. Mother Nature has years of practise. She can stop sunlight bleaching green leaves, keep cacti growing in the driest conditions and sprout a strong oak tree from a teeny-tiny acorn.

Lanolin is another example of Mother Nature’s A-star abilities.

Lanolin is the protective coating sheep use to keep their woolly hides sleek. But don’t worry, no sheeps were harmed in its making. Unlike some other questionable animal-sourced ingredients, lanolin can be easily and safely borrowed after sheep have their yearly haircut.

Lanolin vs. Vaseline

My friend here is some not so well-known lanolin insider knows. In tests comparing the dry lip treatment of lanolin vs. Vaseline. Lanolin is the top performer. Now, this is very exciting because Vaseline is generally considered by dermatologists, doctors and pharmacists as the go-to gold standard for dry skin and dry lip treatment. However, it is not without controversy, it’s man-made, it may cause the skin to become reliant and it may upset certain other bits of your skin’s biology.

Lanolin works a little differently, where Vaseline is not skin-identical and can therefore not be used by your skin, Lanolin can. Vaseline works mostly because it puts a raincoat on top of your dry lips. It locks water in and gives your dry lips time to scramble. Lanolin, however, does more than this because it also contains fatty acids.

Fatty acids are a type of waxy oil your skin and lips use to lock in hydration. Your skin and lips don’t feel oily, because they’re present in the perfect balance. Ever seen oil float on top of water? This is exactly how your skin and lips lock in hydration. When you have dry lips, you need fatty acids to help replenish them… and lanolin my friend is very happy to lend them.

With 2 weeks of use, lanolin can have your dry lips back to soft, smooth and healthy. Vaseline will take longer.

Source: https://www.honestyforyourskin.co.uk/dry-lips-lanolips-101-ointment-review/