Answer: Yes, exfoliating your lips with a sugar scrub not only clears them from unwanted dead skin and impurities but it can also lighten them.
To lighten the colour of your lips, you can gently scrub them with an exfoliator. You can even make your own, by mixing a little honey and sugar to remove the dead skin of the lips.
Reasons to exfoliate your lips:
Removes dead skin which helps to prevent chapped and dry lips. Smooths lips. Evens out lip tone to minimise the appearance of discolouration.
Gentle exfoliation can help remove dry skin that could be giving the lips a dull, rough appearance. It can also stimulate circulation, resulting in temporarily pink lips.
It's important not to overexfoliate. Don't exfoliate more than twice a week. Start with once a week so you avoid irritating your lips. Also, be careful not to scrub too hard or use harsh ingredients to prevent irritating wounds on your lips.
Lack of moisture leads to discoloured, dark, hyperpigmented lips due to excess melanin production. This happens due to various reasons including sun exposure, smoking, pregnancy, certain medication or other medical issues. Less moisture also leads to dry lips.
We recommend exfoliating your lips 1-2 times per week.
If your lips are particularly dry or chapped, you can increase the frequency to 3-4 times per week. Just make sure to give your lips a break in between sessions to avoid further irritation.
Exfoliating your lips removes dead skin cells and helps to prevent dryness and chapping. It also stimulates circulation in your lips, thus making them look more voluminous.
Your pale lips may be a sign that you lack vitamin B12. Your body needs vitamin B12 to produce red blood cells. Like most vitamins, B12 can't be made by your body. You have to get it from food or supplements.
Your lips lose pigment as you age, for the same reasons they may become thinner—with a loss of collagen and moisture, they appear less vibrant. It's a natural part of aging, but there are some ways to make sure you're not accelerating the process.
Exfoliate your lips.
Mix together equal amounts of sugar and honey (or olive oil), then rub onto your lips in a circular motion with a soft-bristled toothbrush. Let this sit for a few minutes. Never exfoliate with an abrasive scrub. You can exfoliate your lips as often as once every other day.
Topical creams: Dark lips treatment products like topical lip creams containing depigmenting creams are used in lip care treatment as a skin lightening agent which decreases the production of melanin responsible for the darkening of the lips and also melasma on face.
Using a few drops of lemon juice, you can make your lips appear brighter and slough off dead skin. Just rub the lemon juice on to your skin and watch your skin brighten up before your eyes.
Lips can tend to go dark for a couple of reasons, sometimes it's what you eat and drink and at other times, lip pigmentation can be genetic. So if you have dark lips right from birth, cosmetic surgery is a good option.
Scrubbing one's lips can cause redness, irritation or bleeding immediately after the process for some. Long-term, frequent lip-scrubbing can cause micro-tears on the skin's surface, leading to frequent dry, chapped lips.
For some, immediately after use, the dead skin that is ripped away can cause redness, irritation, or bleeding. Long-term, these abrasives can cause damage through micro-tearing which prolongs your suffering with dry, chapped lips.
Scrub your lips in a circular motion for two to three minutes—you can actually lick it off since it is completely edible.
Laser treatment.
These treatments can be used to restore lips to their natural color, target dark spots, remove excess melanin, stimulate collagen production, and erase vertical wrinkles around the mouth.
Pro Tip: Simply exfoliating your lips is not enough. It is important to have a good everyday lip-care routine. The best time to do this is before bed. Remove any makeup from your lips and apply hydrating overnight masks.
The skin on your lips is thinner than on the rest of your body, and doesn't accumulate dead skin cells. Because of this, traditional exfoliating or harsh scrubbing can actually damage this delicate skin, leading to more dryness and chapping.
Should I pick or peel the dead skin off my lips? No, you should never pick or peel the dead skin off your lips because you could accidentally peel off too much and cause damage that will take a long time to heal. Careful exfoliation is a much safer way to remove dead skin from the lips.