The butter trifecta that nourishes dry winter lips

As well as open fires and cosy knits, cold weather can mean painful dry and chapped lips. Here’s our superstar hack to give your pout the care it needs.

There’s nothing more painful than dry, cracked and peeling lips.

During winter the cold, dry air and lack of humidity can quickly deplete moisture from the fragile skin of our lips – meaning that instead of a soft, irresistible pout you’re left feeling scaly and sore.

Why our lips suffer in winter

There are a few reasons our lips don’t like the cold. First is that skin on our lips is thinner than skin elsewhere, made up of three to five cellular layers rather than 16. So, moisture is quickly depleted.

Making this worse is that unlike skin elsewhere on our bodies, lips don’t contain sebaceous glands (the glands that keep skin moisturised). Which means our lips are on their own!

In winter as we move from one environmental extreme to the other (freezing outdoors to a toasty warm home anyone) they’re even more susceptible to dryness, chapping and flaking.

The medical term for the more severe form of chapped lips is chelitis, which causes those red, swollen and sometimes bleeding patches in the corner of your mouth.

Changing your skincare routine in the cold weather

Chapped lips can cause severe pain and discomfort if not treated properly. So while good skin care is vital all year round, it’s important to up your lip game as the temps drop and the winds pick up pace.

This includes pampering with products rich in nourishing ingredients like natural butters, with their moisturising benefits and antioxidant properties.

Containing vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, butters can help to contain the skin’s natural moisture and assist in creating a barrier to protect the lip’s skin from dehydration.

burt's bees lips

The butter trifecta for smooth, lustrous lips

Burt’s Bees uses a powerful trifecta of shea butter, cocoa butter and kokum butter in its 100 per cent Natural Ultra Conditioning Moisturising Lip Balm.

Shea butter is a skin superfood that comes from the seeds of the fruit of the Shea (Karite) tree and a popular treatment for dry skin, thanks to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

The lesser-known kokum butter is a naturally derived oil (from the seeds of a fruit-bearing tree, Garcinia indica) that works as a strong emollient, helping to soothe dryness and boost moisture.

And the much-loved fave cocoa butter is high in fatty acids, helping to richly hydrate and nourish the skin whilst forming a protective layer to help retain moisture.

Put these 100 per cent natural butters together and give your pucker power to keep dry and chapped lips at bay all winter long.

*Written by Liz McGrath.

This post is brought to you by Burt’s Bees Natural Ultra Conditioning Moisturising Lip Balm.

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