When your lips are dehydrated, it can be tempting to lick and moisten them. The effect is temporary and might make things worse. Licking your lips coats them in a layer of your saliva, which contains enzymes and chemicals used to digest food in your mouth. These enzymes can lead to additional dryness.
Licking your lips when they're chapped will not make them better. In fact, according to the Dermatology Clinic at UAMS, licking your lips can actually make things worse. Chapped lips are caused by a number of factors. For most people, the weather is the main cause of chapped lips.
Apply a non-irritating lip balm (or lip moisturizer) several times a day and before bed. If your lips are very dry and cracked, try a thick ointment, such as white petroleum jelly. Ointment seals in water longer than waxes or oils. Slather on a non-irritating lip balm with SPF 30 or higher before going outdoors.
If you lick your lips frequently, they can end up being dry and flaky, and even worse, cracked and bleeding. Ouch! Also, if you're an habitual lip licker, you might develop something called lip licker's dermatitis, which is an eczema-like skin inflammation that affects the area around your lips.
Likewise, licking your lips before applying balm can lock in saliva, leading to skin breakdown, he says. Another reason balm gets a bad rap is that most people misunderstand how these products work. While some have mild moisturizing properties, lip balms aren't meant to absorb into your skin like a body lotion.
Saliva, spicy food, the sun and certain products can be irritating to your lips, while some medications and health conditions can cause your lips to be drier than usual. For instance, medications that cause dry mouth can also lead to drier lips.
Don't: Lick Your Lips
While you are licking your lips to keep it moist, the saliva evaporates from the lips' surface drying it rapidly. Avoid licking the lips and apply lip balm whenever you feel your lips need moisture.
As the saliva quickly evaporates, lips will likely end up drier than before. Occasionally licking the lips may not cause any problems. However, persistent licking throughout the day could dry out the lips and lead to chapping, splitting, flaking, or peeling.
Applying lip balm regularly should ease discomfort until your lips have time to heal. Severely chapped lips may take longer to heal, but the average time is two to three weeks to recover completely.
Our skin cells have a natural moisturizing factor (NMF), which helps maintain skin elasticity and prevent lips from chapping and cracking, Talakoub explains. People with dry skin have fewer NMFs, while people with oily skin have more.
As a non-glandular mucous membrane, your lips do not have the ability to generate their own moisture. They do not contain the same concentration of oil-producing sebaceous glands as the rest of the body and are therefore less lubricated and more susceptible to dryness and peeling.
May 28, · When the saliva left over from a lot does kissing help chapped lips feel hard kissing evaporates from your lips it takes does kissing help chapped lips feel hard it the natural moisture and oils that help protect the delicate skin there.
May 28, · When the saliva left over from a lot of kissing evaporates from your lips it takes with it the natural moisture and oils that help protect the delicate skin there. This can lead to dry, cracked, and chapped lips (via Consumer Health Digest).
Kissing can lead to a bad case of chapped lips
When the saliva left over from a lot of kissing evaporates from your lips it takes with it the natural moisture and oils that help protect the delicate skin there. This can lead to dry, cracked, and chapped lips (via Consumer Health Digest).
According to Hayre, petrolatum, shea butter and other occlusives are the best ingredients for hydrating the lips.
The key to healthy lips is using a moisturizing product every day. If your lips are very dry, you may also want to exfoliate your lips 1–2 times per week.
Kick this habit by always keeping your lips hydrated. Keep a lip balm handy and apply on dry and chapped lips whenever you feel like licking them. Also, drinking more water can help big time.
Tonya Reiman, author of The Power of Body Language, says that lip licking is a sign of anticipation: "We lick our lips when we see something we desire," she says. "It could mean that they're hungry for you." "When you're attracted to someone, your mouth produces extra saliva," adds Wood.
So, should you use chapstick or Vaseline? Both! Chapstick moisturizes dry lips, and Vaseline helps in sealing the moisture in and keeping the skin barrier intact. While you can get away with using just chapstick, there is no point in using Vaseline without applying chapstick first.
Keep your mouth soft and relaxed.
Both a cranked-open jaw and a closed-mouth, hard pucker aren't the most pleasant to smooch. Keep your lips just-apart enough, allowing the kisses to be soft and deep, and keep your mouth relaxed. You want to see where the kiss takes you.
Little humidity in the air during the winter months is known to cause chapped lips. Frequent sun exposure in the summer can also worsen your condition. Another common cause of chapped lips is habitual licking. Saliva from the tongue can further strip the lips of moisture, causing more dryness.
“Dehydration, weather changes, certain lip balm ingredients (like menthol, camphor, phenol, and salicylic acid), vitamin deficiencies (specifically iron, zinc, and Vitamin B12), sun damage, and lip-licking can all cause dry lips,” explains Jennifer Weiss, a PA at Marmur Medical.
Carmex is a moisturizing and soothing lip balm for dry and chapped lips. It contains several emollients that form an occlusive barrier on the lips that soothe and softens dry lips. These emollients form a protective barrier that traps moisture in the skin to keep the lips hydrated.
If you have chapped lips or dry skin around lips, use Aquaphor Healing Ointment® as your dry lips treatment to relieve dryness and soothe dry cracked lips. It also adds a little extra shine.
Most people can't focus on anything as close as a face at kissing distance so closing your eyes saves them from looking at a distracting blur or the strain of trying to focus. Kissing can also make us feel vulnerable or self-conscious and closing your eyes is a way of making yourself more relaxed.