The lips perform vital functions, including holding the food while chewing and regulating speech. Moreover, the lips make up a person’s overall aesthetic appeal and can influence thoughts and expression of feelings through kissing. Because of their many benefits, keeping your lips healthy is crucial to ensure they do their job properly.
Sun exposure, harsh lip products, and improper lips usage can lead to lip health problems. These elements can cause lip dryness, irritation, and infection. So, how can you bring back your healthy lips? Below are the different ways to restore lip health.
1. Drink Water
The lips are one of the parts of the body that medical practitioners commonly check to assess health. Cracked and dry lips can indicate dehydration, which can be life-threatening if water levels in the body significantly drop. So, stay hydrated to restore lip health. Drink lots of fluids, especially during the summer season.
2. Moisturize Your Lips
It’s essential to moisturize your lips to restore and maintain lip health. You can apply a hypoallergenic lip moisturizer or balm several times a day. If you have cracked lips, apply a thick ointment, like petroleum jelly to lock in the water longer than oils or waxes.
3. Sun-Protect Your Lips
Do you love camping, mountain climbing, or walking downtown when doing errands? Before going outdoors, apply a lip balm with SPF 30 or higher to your lips. The sun-protective ingredients of lip balms include zinc oxide and titanium oxide. Don’t forget to continue slathering lip balm every two hours while outdoors.
4. Consider Lip Fillers
As people age, facial volume decreases. The facial skin sags and the lips also lose their plumpness and volume.
If you want to revitalize your lips, one of the latest trends is lip filler injection. Dermal fillers, such as lip fillers, add hydration and volume to the treated area, like your lips. Most lip fillers are made of synthetic hyaluronic acid (HA), a natural substance found in the body.
A doctor or registered nurse can perform lip filler. The procedure takes about 30 minutes, with maintenance treatments necessary every six to 12 months.
The medical practitioner injects a filler gel, binding with the water in the lips to increase its volume. The HA immediately attracts water into the lip tissue, giving it a fuller appearance. Moreover, the gel attaches to the tissues, allowing oxygen, hormones, and glucose to pass between the gel fragments. As a result, you’ll have plumper and fuller lips.
Lip fillers can resolve common patient concerns. The medical practitioner injects along the lip line edges if a patient desires a sharp Cupid’s bow. For those who prefer an overall plumper lip appearance, their lower and upper lips need injections.
5. Leave Your Lips Alone
How do you wet your lips when it becomes dry? Do you lick, bite, and pick your lips whenever it feels dry? While licking your lips can wet them, they become drier as your saliva evaporates. If you have cracked and wounded lips, biting or picking will only irritate them.
6. Use Your Lips Properly
Are you fond of using your lips to do some tricks or hold items? If yes, then you have to stop this unhealthy habit. Avoid holding things made of metal, such as jewellery, paper clips, pins, nails, or any hard, inedible material with your lips. These materials can irritate your sensitive lips and cause lip damage.
7. Treat Chapped Lips
Treating chapped lips involves checking the best ingredients in lip products. Choose one that your dermatologist recommends. Most suitable products have natural ingredients, such as mineral oil, shea butter, and castor seed oil, to help treat chapped lips and restore their health.
While essential oils are good for the skin, some impede lip healing. For your chapped lips to heal faster, avoid lip products with eucalyptus, lanolin, salicylic acid, phenol, menthol, and oxybenzone or octinoxate. Also, avoid lip products with fragrance and flavouring, such as mint, citrus, peppermint, and cinnamon flavours.
8. Quit Smoking
Smoking leaves the lips looking dark and unhealthy. The teeth also become stained with prolonged cigarette smoking.
Mouth cancer may affect the lips, cheeks, tongue, or palate. In Australia, about 59% of mouth cancers are caused by smoking, and 31% are caused by too much alcohol consumption. If you have unsightly lips, you can restore their healthy look by stopping smoking and moderate alcohol drinking.
9. Don’t Ignore Lip Lesions
Sores around the lips or mouth can be harmless or pose serious health issues. If you have a persistent mouth sore, consult a doctor for a proper diagnosis to ensure you don’t have mouth cancer.
Cancer of the lips is common in older people. These types of lip cancer include basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma, which can bleed, have sores, or be symptomless. Therefore, people with sun-damaged lips or actinic cheilitis have a higher risk of developing lips cancer.
Benign lip lesions outside the lips are usually caused by allergic contact dermatitis, warts, milia (white cysts), herpes simplex (viral infection), warts, and chapped lips. However, dark skin lesions need a professional assessment to ensure they’re not melanoma, another type of skin cancer.
10. Eat Nutritious Foods
Eating healthy foods is vital for restoring lip health. Your lips need vitamins A, C, and E and zinc. So, eat vitamin A-rich foods, such as carrots, apricots, spinach, milk, and eggs, to help repair lip damage and retain moisture.
Vitamin C-rich foods like citrus fruits, strawberries, and sweet potatoes can help boost your immune system and restore lip health after wind or sun damage. Furthermore, vitamin C helps retain collagen to make your lips look plump.
Leafy green vegetables, nuts, fortified cereals, and vegetable oils are rich in vitamin E (Packed with powerful antioxidants) to keep your lips smooth. On the other hand, yogurt, beef, crab, oyster, and other zinc-rich foods can help maintain lip moisture.
Conclusion
Restore your lip health by applying the tips shared above. Be aware of the ingredients in the lip products you use in maintaining and treating your lips. Consult an experienced dermatologist and strictly follow the professional’s advice. Never experiment with your lips and use them only according to their intended purposes.
