Your lips help you communicate, eat, sense, feel, smile, frown and kiss, making them an important part of your body. The lips also protect your mouth by acting as doors, blocking unwanted substances from entering your mouth. The lips are made of sensitive tissues that are constantly exposed to passing air from the environment. This increases the rate at which your lips lose moisture, resulting in chapping.
Use Lip Balm
Lip balm is the most common way to treat and prevent chapped lips. Also commonly referred to as Chapstick, after the popular brand name, lip balm works by coating the lips with a protective layer which prevents the escape of moisture from the lip tissue. Most commonly, petrolatum or beeswax is the active ingredient, according to the Mayo Clinic. Lip balm may also contain cooling or healing ingredients, such as aloe, camphor or menthol, to further help reduce discomfort from chapped lips.
Apply Petroleum Jelly
As an alternative to commercial lip balm, you can apply petroleum jelly to your chapped lips. Petroleum jelly acts similarly to lip balms, providing protective coating on the lip tissue, slowing the escape of moisture from the lips.
Drink Water
Drinking plenty of water may help relieve chapped lips. When you become dehydrated, your body pulls water from less important areas of the body–such as your lips–and detours that water to other, more important, areas. Drinking plenty of water ensures you are hydrated enough to keep all areas of your body hydrated.
Lip Licking
Refraining from licking your lips may also help solve problems with chapped lips. Licking your lips is not a way to moisturize chapped lips. Licking your lips can worsen chapped lips, according to the Mayo Clinic. Your saliva is acidic, meaning that when you lick your lips, you transplant corrosive substances onto the skin which can further irritate and dry your lips out. Saliva also evaporates quickly, leaving your lips dry, soon after licking them.
