Saliva contains enzymes that help break down food, and when you repeatedly lick lips, it can irritate the thin, delicate skin, causing it to become darker in colour.
1. Stop licking your lips: Many people suffer from a repetitive habit of licking their lips. This repetitive friction and irritation causes a darkening of the lips and even the surrounding skin.
Causes of dark lips
excessive exposure to the sun. lack of hydration. cigarette smoking. allergic reactions to toothpaste, lipstick, etc.
Saliva contains digestive enzymes, like amylase and maltase, which wear down the skin on the lips. Over time, this will leave the lips more vulnerable to dry air. The skin can even break open and bleed. When we lick our lips, saliva adds moisture to the surface of the lips, but only for a brief moment.
Saliva evaporates quickly, leaving lips drier than before you licked them. If you tend to lick your lips, avoid flavored lip balm — which may tempt you to lick your lips even more. Stay hydrated. Drink plenty of fluids, and moisten the air in your home with a humidifier.
When you lick your lips, you're coating them in saliva. Not only does it evaporate very quickly to leave lips drier than before, your saliva is also full of enzymes that are too harsh for the delicate lip skin. These enzymes can remain on the lips and cause them to feel dry and uncomfortable.
Specific triggers play a significant role like excessive sun exposure, hormonal changes and nutrition. Another skin condition, i.e. acanthosis nigricans can also cause thickening and darkening of the upper lip area. Eczemas and conditions like atopic dermatitis can cause pigmentation in the area above the upper lip.
Does licking my lips often make it pink? No. Saliva contains many enzymes. Licking your lips more often would make your lips dry, so try not to lick your lips and apply a good moisturizer instead.
Petroleum jelly contains mineral oil, which helps in smoothening out the lips. However, when applied after sun exposure, it may cause lip-darkening.
The skin around your mouth can become dark due to hyperpigmentation [1], which is a very common cause. Hyperpigmentation is the excess production of melanin in certain areas of the skin, which make those patches darker than the rest of your skin. Hyperpigmentation can affect people of all ages and different skin types.
Apply a layer of petroleum Jelly to your lips before going to sleep every day. The jelly will dissolve any un-welcome pigmentation and over a few weeks' time you will notice soft, smooth and naturally pink lips. Wipe off jelly in the morning and go about your day.
People can get pink lips naturally by using simple treatments, such as lip balms, scrubs, or masks. However, the effect will be temporary. Many at-home treatments that make the lips more pink work by increasing the blood flow to the area, which will eventually return to normal.
Exfoliate Your Lips
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.
The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) recommends using white petroleum jelly throughout the day and before bed to moisturize and sooth dry, cracked lips. Petroleum jelly seals in water longer than oils and waxes. It's also inexpensive and easy to find online and in drugstores.
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.
Discoloration around the mouth is a common manifestation of hyperpigmentation. These darkened areas of skin tend to develop in small patches, and may occur anywhere on the body. The discoloration is a direct result of increased melanin production in your skin.
Hyperpigmentation can go away on its own, dependent on the cause, but it may take a long time to fade. Some cases of hyperpigmentation may never go away completely.
Aloe vera gel has tons of health and skin benefits. The plant contains aloesin, a flavonoid that is known to make lips pink naturally. The anti-inflammatory and healing properties of aloe vera keep the skin healthy. .
Sugar for Kissable Lips Well, just like sugar is effective to remove dead skin cells in your body, sugar is also excellent to remove dead skin cells in your lips. Brown sugar is also softer and has finer grains than white sugar.