Next to the eyes, the lips are the most expressive part of the face. You may not be aware of it, but your lips are constantly in the spotlight as the people you interact with watch you speak, eat, and communicate with facial cues. Plump, pink lips are also a sign of health and beauty. For these reasons and more, it’s important to keep your lips in great shape. Here are our tips for maintaining a perfect pucker.
How To Care for Your Lips
Your lips are unique, and therefore require special care. Lips are more sensitive than ordinary skin. In addition, the skin around your lips is constantly mobile and might start to show signs of aging before the rest of your face. Taking care of your lips starts with these good lip care habits.
Protect Them from the Sun
Since regular sunscreen doesn’t taste very good, opt for a lip product that has an SPF of 30 or higher and reapply hourly. Speaking, eating, drinking, and licking your lips removes SPF faster than elsewhere on your face or body.
Keep Them Moisturized.
The fact that the skin of the lips is thinner is the reason they can feel drier than the rest of you. That’s what lip balm is for. Make it a part of your regular skin care routine, and apply it before your other lipsticks or lip stains for a smooth finish.
Exfoliate
Especially if you get chapped lips, exfoliating has many benefits. Along with keeping your lips moisturized, you can exfoliate them gently once or twice a week with an exfoliant or a soft toothbrush to remove dead skin and boost circulation. You can DIY your own lip scrub with a teaspoon each of coconut oil and brown sugar for a sweet lip scrub boost.
Keep it Natural
If you don’t have lip balm handy, in a pinch you can use aloe, cocoa butter, olive oil, or coconut oil to keep lips moist. In general, it’s good practice to avoid using lip products with too many harsh chemical ingredients. Remember this the next time you lick your lips!
Take It All Off
It’s important to take off your makeup before bed, and that includes lipstick and other lip products that contain pigment powders, which can be drying. Clean gently with your regular face wash and slather up with a moisturizer or balm before bed.
Avoid Smoking and Too Much Sun
It should go without saying that sun damage is bad for your lips and can contribute to premature signs of aging like volume loss and fine lines and wrinkles. So does smoking.
Try an Anti-Aging Lip Product
Because it’s often in motion, the skin around the lips is prone to fine lines and wrinkles. This is only natural, but you can slow down their appearance with an anti-aging product, such as one that contains retinol, formulated specifically for the lips.
Try a Non-Invasive Lip Plumper
If volume is your thing but fillers aren’t, there are plenty of lip balms, lipsticks, and glosses that will plump up your lips temporarily. These tend to contain peppermint oil as an active ingredient, which is safe to use in most cases.
Aesthetic Treatments for Your Best Lips
Lips get their shape in part from collagen, but as we age we tend to produce less collagen and elastin, another important building block for plump, firm lips. Venus Versa™ Intense Pulsed Light treatments gently penetrate the layers of skin around the lips to promote collagen and elastin production for smoother, more youthful-looking skin.
In the case of fine lines and wrinkles, which can cluster around the lip line due to a number of factors including age, Venus Legacy™ treatments use Multi-Polar Radio Frequency energy to tighten and contour the skin while kickstarting collagen and elastin production to smoothen fine lines and wrinkles.
If your lips constantly feel dry and look thin, they may be in serious need of hydration. Venus Glow™ treatments deliver hydration deep within the skin’s layers to renew your lips from the inside out. This is also a great treatment if your lips or the skin surrounding them feels or looks congested from product buildup, as it thoroughly cleanses pores and gently removes dead skin cells to reveal clean, healthy skin.
For a Venus Versa™, Venus Legacy™, or Venus Glow™ treatment at a MedSpa near you, or to find a provider for any of our other state-of-the-art aesthetic treatments, use the clinic finder below.
