Preserving Style: A Surprising Way to Treat Chapped Lips

Every winter, for me, is such a battle for hydration! Some people are blessed with skin that retains enough moisture where external application can become too much of a good thing (i.e. clogged pores and pimples). But for people like me who have to be on the constant scour for the best hydrating products that avail me the moisture I need to get through the day without shriveling up, hydrating my skin can be a terrible burden, especially with winter looming around the corner. A particular area that has always been a issue for me are my lips. If you have a "chapped lip" issue, hopefully the following advice below from Allure.com helps you out. I am in the process of testing these methods myself so perhaps I can report in the future on the fact that these practices work. You can also view their review of a ton of other lip balms on their site here. 

A Surprising Way to Treat Chapped Lips

Here's something really surprising that I learned recently: "Eating a lot of citrus fruit in the winter can make it harder to heal chapped lips, because juice from oranges and grapefruits irritate them," says Jeanette Graf, a dermatologist in Great Neck, New York. "The same goes for certain toothpastes." Use a lip balm right after you brush your teeth or eat an orange, and your lips won't become as dry. And then there are two more things you should know about treating chapped lips, including the fastest way to rehab them:

Soothe chronically chapped lips, fast. "The quickest way to fix them is by dabbing on an over-the counter hydrocortisone cream before bed, and then smoothing on Aquaphor the next morning," says Graf. "Keep using the Aquaphor morning and night until your lips are back to normal."

Pick the right lip balm for everyday. One that's creamy or viscous penetrates and heals the cracks in your lips better than a wax. Look for ingredients like hydrating shea butter and hyaluronic acid. If your dry lips are persistent, a treatment with ceramides will help repair your lip's natural moisture barrier (try By Terry Baume de Rose SPF 15 with ceramides and shea butter).