Get Soft Lips With These Tricks!

Lips that are parched? Please, no more

Croissants flaky? Yes, if you please. Lips that are flaky? Thank you, but no. Nobody enjoys having their lips feel as dry and flaky as puff pastry. However, many of us are perpetually afflicted with tight, chapped, or even cracked lips. Here’s why our lips are particularly vulnerable to drying out — and to making out — and how to keep them kissably soft.

Why Can Your Lips Become Desert-Dry?

Our lips lack oil and sweat glands — special cells that regulate our body’s temperature, hydration, and moisture — in comparison to other parts of our body. As a result, our lips are much more susceptible to drying out in the Sahara Desert style.

Additionally, our sensitive smackers are extremely thin-skinned in comparison to the rest of our body. For instance, our face’s protective outer skin layer (the stratum corneum) contains up to 16 layers of cells. However, on our pillows? Only three to five layers. This also helps to explain why our lips are frequently naturally pink. The outermost layer of skin is so thin that we can see the blood-filled capillaries beneath — thus preserving the original “vamp” lip color.

Why are your lips so sensitive to smooching?

Human lips contain the highest concentration of touch receptor cells found anywhere in the body. Thus, when a sensation grazes your elbow, it can set off fireworks when it lingers on your lips. And if that sensation is a kiss, you may choose to allow it to linger indefinitely, eliciting an explosion of positive emotions. (Cue one of the most memorable scenes from “When Harry met Sally.”)

Your lips are the most visible erogenous zone on your body. According to Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of The Science of Kissing, lips are “packed with sensitive nerve endings,” which means that even a light brush sends a cascade of information to our brains, assisting us in deciding whether to continue and what might happen next. Yes, indeed!

According to a Scientific American article, “information [from the lips] arrives in the somatosensory cortex, a swath of tissue on the brain’s surface that represents tactile information in a map of the body.” The lips take up a disproportionate amount of space on that map because the size of each represented body region is proportional to the density of its nerve endings.”

Due to the fact that our lips contain over a million nerve endings, even small pecks can have a significant effect. If you want to learn how to improve your kissing skills, read our post, “The Science of Smooching.”

Get Soft Lips With These Tricks!
Get Soft Lips With These Tricks!

How to Make Your Lips Sensuous and Soft

So you want your lips to be kissably soft? Appropriate. Even if you’re simply blowing air kisses to yourself in the mirror, taking care of your lips will make you feel more secure and healthy. This is how:

1.Exfoliate one

Before hydrating your lips, you should remove any dead skin. Here are a few simple and cost-effective ways to exfoliate:

    • Dampen a soft toothbrush with warm water (and, if desired, a moisturizing oil like coconut oil) and gently brush your lips until they feel smooth and soft.
    • Prepare a sweet syrup by combining sugar and water. Rub this mixture on your lips until they feel soft and the dead, dry skin can be gently scrubbed away.
    • Using a soft washcloth dampened with warm water, gently exfoliate your lips.

2. Look for the ideal lip balm

Lip licking only serves to dehydrate them (see below). To truly assist chapped lips, you’ll need backup: a lip balm that both restores and locks in moisture. The key is to examine the ingredient list to ensure that the balm you’ve chosen is up to the task — some balms specialize in one or the other. Here’s how to find the best balm, whether you buy it at the grocery store or splurge on high-end products. (If you want to double-check that the balm you choose is safe for both you and the environment, consult the Environmental Working Group’s rating system.)

The essentials of lip balm

To begin, hydrate and soften your dry lips, choose a lip moisturizer that is rich in “emollients” and/or “humectants.” These are simply fancy terms for what certain ingredients do when they are applied to the skin.

Humectants are substances that draw water to themselves. On the surface of your skin, humectants attract water from the deeper layers (the dermis) to the surface layers (epidermis). Humectants can also draw moisture from the surrounding air into your skin in humid environments. Glycerin, aloe vera, honey, and hyaluronic acid are all popular humectants in moisturizing lip balms.

Emollients are ingredients that aid in the preservation of the skin’s soft, smooth, and pliable appearance by filling in the crevices between the cells (corneocytes) in the outer layer of our skin. These oils are quickly absorbed beneath the surface of our skin, improving skin smoothness and soothing dry lips. Shea butter, lanolin, coconut oil, almond oil, jojoba oil, and hemp oil are all emollients found in lip balm.

After you’ve restored moisture to your lips, you’ll need a special ingredient to keep them soft for as long as possible. Take care of that pout!

Occlusives are substances that act as a barrier between your tender smoochers and the harsh, dry world. Bear in mind that you must first hydrate your lips before sealing the deal. While these materials are protective, they do not address dry lips. Therefore, it is critical that your lip balm contains hydrating ingredients or that you apply a separate hydrating moisturizer prior to applying your lip balm. Petroleum, beeswax, mineral oil, candelilla wax, and carnauba wax are all examples of occlusives found in lip balms.

3. Get enough to drink

Ascertain that you are drinking enough water. The skin is an organ, just like any other organ, and like any other organ, it is composed of cells. Water makes up up to 30% of the volume of skin cells. We must replenish the water that our bodies naturally lose each day. If your skin is dehydrated, it can become dry, tight, flaky, and more prone to wrinkles. Maintain adequate hydration to avoid chapped lips.

Don’t have dry lips?

Avoid the following common smoocher mistakes:

  • Avoid licking your lips. This practice exacerbates symptoms of dryness and irritation (be cautious, LL Cool J!). Normally, our lips have a very thin oil layer that acts as a barrier against moisture loss. When we lick our lips, we remove this surface, increasing the likelihood of our lips drying out. Additionally, digestive enzymes found in our saliva may irritate our lips. To avoid chapped lips, avoid licking!
  • Avoid camphor, phenol, and menthol. While these ingredients may provide a pleasant cooling sensation, they can become irritating over time, aggravating dry lips.
  • Avoid the use of artificial fragrances.Perfumes applied to your pouters can irritate and dry out your skin.

Additionally, Why Do We Have Lips?

Your hypersensitive lips have been critical to your survival since birth. They enable you to breastfeed or bottle feed by sensing precisely how much to suckle and maintaining a tight seal for swallowing.

As a toddler, your rosebud pout enabled you to eat everything from sticky peanut butter to drippy fruit pops — and to discern when something was too hot or spicy for your liking. Additionally, your smackers enable you to say “mmmmm” when you enjoy the taste of something or to express your disgust when you spit it out. Lips are necessary for speech to be articulate. (Try them out now by making the sounds p, b, m, f, v, and w.)

Later in life, your smoochers developed into make-out experts, potentially assisting you in determining whether a mate possessed serious potential. According to a Smithsonian Magazine article, “women, in particular, value early kissing.” Saliva contains hormones and other compounds that may be used to chemically assess mate suitability. This is where the biological brain comes into play. “

Our luscious lips have also enabled us to share our joy throughout life through a smile — one of more than 20 distinct facial expressions humans can make. Every day, let your gorgeous grin shine!

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