The best times to use a lip scrub are at night or before applying lipstick. At night, you can clear away those dead skin cells and use a lip mask for deep moisturizing benefits. When you wake your lips will be supple, smooth, and ready for makeup.
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.
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.
Over-Exfoliating
It's easy to use a lip scrub multiple times a week, however, we recommend only using a lip scrub 1 to 2 times per week to avoid over-exfoliating your lips. This can cause more harm by scrubbing too many dead skin layers off your lips and leaving your lips overly sensitive and irritated.
Exfoliating in the evening can help to increase the efficiency of the skin cell turnover, resulting in a clearer complexion and fresher, healthier skin. As mentioned above, if you experience redness easily, it may be better to exfoliate at night. Your skin will have a longer time to recover!
Technique matters when it comes to exfoliation, and the techniques are different for body scrubs compared to dry brushing. You want to use a body scrub while your skin is wet. It's ideal to do it while you're in the shower and after you've been in the shower for a few minutes to loosen up your dead skin cells.
DON'T rinse off a chemical exfoliant
After exfoliating, don't wash it off right away - the active ingredients take time to absorb into your skin and work their magic! Leave your exfoliant on for about 15-30 minutes to ensure the ingredients dissolve and remove all dead skin cells.
The best times to use a lip scrub are at night or before applying lipstick. At night, you can clear away those dead skin cells and use a lip mask for deep moisturizing benefits. When you wake your lips will be supple, smooth, and ready for makeup.
Step 4: Using the Lip Scrub
Before each use, let the scrub sit out and adjust to room temperature to soften up before applying to your pout. Using a generous amount, apply the scrub to your lips in a circular motion. Let it sit for 1-2 minutes and then remove with a warm washcloth.
Just-exfoliated lips need to be hydrated and protected, so the next step after rinsing off your lip scrub is to moisturize. Because many lip balms contain petroleum, which is a barrier, you need to use a product that actually restores hydration first. The same moisturizer you use for your face may suffice.
Do You Wipe Off Lip Scrub? Yes! Remove it with a warm wash cloth and apply a hydrating lip serum or lip balm like the Kiehl's Buttermask for a moisturized finish. This mask contains coconut oil and wild mango butter that helps replenish the lips' moisture barrier with every use.
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.
Tips on exfoliating your lips
Over-exfoliation could make your lips suffer into worse condition - more chapped, dried, and sore lips. 💋Follow up with your favourite lip treatment to moisturize after you exfoliate - that's also an effective way to prevent your lips from aging!
After hydrating, then you can exfoliate or use a scrub. Scrubbing skin that is already dry can lead to inflammation and cracks in the outer skin layer that actually makes the dryness worse in the end." The key takeaway: Skip the scrubs on your lips and opt for deep moisturizing serums and balms instead.
Long-term, frequent lip-scrubbing can cause micro-tears on the skin's surface, leading to frequent dry, chapped lips. Essentially, when a person scrubs their lips, they further irritate the skin, which prolongs the presence of dead skin and cracks on the lips, leading to a vicious cycle.
Follow up your lip scrub with a moisturizing formula, such as lip balm or lip butter, to help restore hydration and give you healthy & youthful looking lips ASAP.
“Lip scrubs can be damaging to the delicate mucosa of the lip; they can cause a little bit of abrasion, micro-injury, and even some bleeding if you're not careful,” Devgan says. “If you're too rough with exfoliation, you can get hyperpigmentation, and your lips will look a little more brown than pink.”
The “black stuff” when you rub your skin is nothing but dead cells, dirt and surface grime. It comes off due to friction caused by rubbing your skin.
Scrubbing can irritate your skin, causing acne to flare. What to do instead: Be gentle when washing your face and other skin with acne. You want to use a mild, non-comedogenic cleanser.
Good Korean scrub
The intense Korean cleansing process (called "seshin") entails soaking the body in hot water, then rubbing it with a "Korean Italy towel" -- a colorful, thin loofah with a sandpaper-like texture -- to rid the body of all the gunk, dirt and layers of dead skin that accumulate naturally.
While one exfoliation won't completely strip your skin of all of its oil, it will remove most of it, leaving the surface dry. Therefore, exfoliating without applying a good moisturizer is guaranteed to leave the face drier than it was before exfoliation.
Use your scrubbing tool to gently move along your bikini line in a small circular motion to remove dead skin cells that may be clogging up the pores. Be sure to cover the entire surface of the area. Allow the exfoliate to sit on your skin for up to 3 minutes. Rinse the area well.
Use a gentle exfoliating serum that's formulated specifically for this area (the keyword is GENTLE). I recommend the Overnight Eye Serum. I formulated it with a blend of glycolic and lactic acids, as well as soothing allantoin and aloe vera, to safely treat this delicate area.