We all know that lip balm is the first aid for dry, chapped lips. But similar to any other addiction, lip balm addiction is actually not good for our lips!
First things first, let’s take a look at what does actually lip balm do. Lip balm itself is a wax-like substance which contains beeswax or carnauba wax, camphor, cetyl alcohol, lanolin, paraffin, and petrolatum as its basic ingredients. In addition to that, certain lip balms also contain dyes, flavor, fragrance, menthol, phenol, salicylic acid, and sunscreens (SPF). Lip balm provides an extra layer (also known as buffer layer) between the lips and the environment so that your lips will not be directly exposed to the environment. Why is this so important? Because lips only have thin surface layers of skin, which means that they’re more likely to dry out compared to the skin of the face, for instance. Which means, we can lose up to 10 times more moisture through the lips compared to other parts of the face and body. Certain conditions in the environment such as dry air, cold temperature, and wind can easily drain moisture away from the skin, including the body and lips, therefore can lead to dryness. In conclusion, our lips are very prone to dryness and dehydration. When the lips become dry and lose its moisture, the skin covering them can become tight and start to split, which makes your lips look chapped! (uhmm…not good!!!) In addition, when you have dry lips, dirt, bacteria or fungi will enter the cracks in the skin of the lips, therefore can cause…infection and your lips will be sore and inflamed (medical terms: cheilitis)! Okay, we know that big lips mean sexy, just look at Angelina Jolie! But when your lips are big due to inflammation plus it is painful as well, that is not sexy at all!
Let’s take a look at these pictures:
Okay, it is obvious that we do not want to have chapped lips, right? In order to prevent that, we need an extra layer to keep the lips moist and does not dry out or lose moisture that fast. Let’s take a look to the anatomy of the lips:
Look at the picture above. Regular skin layers have thicker epidermis which comprise of thick stratum corneum as the outermost protective layer, while the epidermis of the lips has the thinnest stratum corneum compared to elsewhere in the body and overall, epidermis is also thinner compared to the regular skin layer. In addition, lips do not possess sweat glands as the natural moisturizer of the skin, which makes them more prone to dryness.
When we wear lip balm, there will be an extra layer above our lips so that the moisture will be locked in and we can get extra hydration with the contents of the lip balm itself such as beneficial oils. The extra layer will also help to seal deep cracks and splits from infection and irritation, usually due to extreme weather condition. In addition, many lip balms nowadays contain SPF, which is good for protection against free radicals from the sun.
Here are the important ingredients of lip balm and its benefits:
From those explanations, we can see that lip balm is very beneficial right? However, after searching about lip balm on Google, I stumbled upon Dr Oz’s video about lip balm addiction (click to see the video) and why lip balm addiction (like any other addiction) is not good! We know that it has lots of benefits, right? But on the other hand, it has some drawbacks as well. 🙁 So before I proceed, here are the signs of lip balm addiction:
Why is lip balm addiction bad? Let’s go back to the thin layers of skin in the lips. Since the skin layer is very thin, the skin on the lips is designed to shed very quickly so that the new skin will come out and grow quickly as the old one shed away. If there is excessive extra layer above the lip, the old skin which is supposed to shed very quickly cannot be shed and the regeneration of the new skin is slowed down, therefore blocking the natural regeneration process of the lips. In the video, Dr. Oz described that if we apply lip balm rigorously, we are treating our lips like a croissant! If we cut a croissant in half, we can see that the inner portion of the croissant, which is crossing against each other. This is what happens if we block the natural regeneration process of the lips, the regeneration process will stop and the skin layers will look like the inside of a croissant cut in half. In addition, same as croissant, the outer layer will also become crusty and more chapped. Therefore, instead of protecting the lips, it can make our lips more chapped if we use it excessively!
So what should we do? Should we let our lips go nude without any protection against the environment? Of course not! We still have to nourish our lips to keep them moist and support their natural regeneration process. There are several things that we can do to prevent our lips from drying while still keeping the regeneration process intact.
So, how about you? Do you have lip balm addiction? Now that we all know the function of a lip balm and what to look in a lip balm, don’t forget to choose your lip balm wisely and use it properly to get healthy and beautiful lips! 🙂