Scrub, Balm, Tint: How to Take Care of Your Lips During Cold Weather
There’s something about lips that distinguishes them from the rest of our facial features, including our eyes.
In ways similar to how hats always pop, when jeans don’t fit and hems don’t flatter, what we put on our mouths can make or break the look. Never is this truer than during the cold months. And in a world where half our faces are covered, whether with scarves or N95 masks, it still perks us up when our lips are cared for and look terrific, even when we’re the only ones who know they are Insta-ready.
These are my preferred and recommended products and tips for lip care throughout the year, and particularly when the temperature is cold. Share your go-to’s in the comments.
Scrub
When it comes to exfoliating lips, besides actually doing it (because all skin has to be sloughed at some point), you’ve got choices. Presuming all granular methods are effective (and time has shown they are), you’ll keep on when you connect with your preferred texture. The three products I have found most effective over the years do range from gentle to assertive to no joke. Take your pick, based on budget and how you want to polish. After every lip scrub, be sure to hydrate your lips.
Dr.PAWPAW Scrub and Nourish $12.25USD | £8.95 (including VAT)
It’s vegan, the key ingredients are plant-based, and it can be used anywhere your skin is dry. Dr.PAWPAW Scrub and Nourish is a lidded pot with two levels. This dual-purpose product is a sibling of the United Kingdom’s first pawpaw-based balm. Massage less than a dime-sized amount of the scrub, whose ingredients include sucrose (produced naturally in plants and the foundation for white sugar), castor, sunflower, and olive oils. You’ll know when you’ve gotten from scratchy to smooth, and you can remove the remaining grit by licking your lips or wiping your mouth. Follow that with the application of less balm than you think you need. It is comprised of the aforementioned oils, along with papaya fruit and aloe extracts. Your lips will feel like satin.
The brand’s founders, Johnny and Pauline, created it when their daughter was diagnosed with eczema in 2013. They recognized the need for a natural option when the market was exclusive with prescription creams whose ingredients included steroids. The balm they created was for lips, skin, and hair, and from that, a family of affordable products for all ages and skin concerns came to be.
Fresh Sugar Lip Polish Exfoliator $18USD
If memory serves, Lev Glazman and Alina Roytberg were the first makers to create a lip scrub that didn’t feel like a punishment and was effective. I first experienced Fresh at the flagship store in Boston on Newbury Street. To this day, there’s something somewhat special about Fresh products, and the Lip Polish Exfoliator is one of them.
Shea butter (a go-to ingredient for hydration) and jojoba seed oil were combined with brown sugar crystals, which give the scrubby component a nourishing and soft carrier. Bolstered by meadowfoam seed oil and grapeseed oil, you’ll rub the polish around your lips, almost to the point of dissolution, and remove the remaining with a damp cloth. The step that professional artists always recommend doing before applying lip color is a must during the chilly months.
The lip scrub™ by sara happ $24USD
Long an industry favorite, the lip scrub by sara happ is fast-acting and comes in multiple flavors. Its formula includes some of the same ingredients as Fresh’s polish – grapeseed and jojoba seed oils, brown sugar crystals – as well as extracts of rice bran, rosemary leaf, and sunflower seed.
Ms. Happ’s product is denser and more, for lack of a better word, scrubby in its texture. You won’t want to use this to slough the dry skin flakes when you’re angry. While you need to apply some strength when you’re making circles with your fingertips, don’t press too hard. Remove the residual with a tissue and enjoy the taste of the sugar crystals that are left.
Balm
Hydrating and/or healing lips is even more important during the cold months. To say the lip balm market is saturated is an understatement. Ingredients range from natural to medical, to celebrity- and dermatologist-recommended. At the end of the day, whatever your budget and textural, scent, and application preference, you’ll find a lip balm or treatment.
My social media handle on every platform where you don’t need to use your name is @GlossGal. While it was born of my dedication to (obsession with?) lip colors, particularly glosses with the ideal balance of pigment, wear, and shine, I have fully Sherlock Holmes’d the world of lip balms. Topping my findings are products that are specifically, and exclusively, intended to hydrate and heal. Ones that add color come next, under Tint.
Between affordability and efficacy, this is a constantly growing market. Take advantage of stores’ 30-day return policy, and buy a lip treatment, try it for two weeks, and note the impact. Yes, we’ll always have Vaseline, Carmex, and Aquaphor, and the products that follow are game changers.
Beekman 1802 Vanilla Absolute Goat Milk Lip Balm $8USD
Like everything made by Beekman 1802, the Goat Milk Lip Balm is a meaningful experience. Between the inclusion of goat milk, which comes from the goats on their farm in Sharon Springs, New York, the fragrance notes(!) in the balm, and the ingredient list of certified organics and Kindness (capitalized, I am sure, intentionally), this is not our parents’ ChapStick (and all due respect to ChapStick).
From goat milk, we receive Lactic Acid (a natural exfoliant), loads of fatty acids (which moisturize), and triglycerides (known to sustain skin softness). Goat milk and human skin have a similar pH, which helps to balance our skin. This is crucial during cold weather, for lip skin is already fragile and prone to sensitivity. Goat milk is also antimicrobial; we can certainly use that right now. #thecovid
In addition to goat milk, the lip balm contains coconut oil, Vitamin E, and calendula flower extract
I don’t recall ever seeing or using a lip balm with fragrance notes. While my nose hasn’t been able to pick up scent for coming on 13 years, my sense memory is strong, and to know that what is protecting my lips is rich in meaningful scents (Top: Lily, Dewy Muguet, Orange, Medium: Vanilla, Golden Amber, and Bass: Sandalwood, Cedar, Patchouli) and essential oils of Cedarwood, Orange, and Patchouli brings a luxury to the balm.
Seratopical® Love Your Lips Moisturizer with CBD $12.95USD
This is not the first lip balm I tried that has been cannibis’ized, and it is the best one. Besides the ingredients Seratopical® contains – marula, argan, and sunflower seed oils, peptides, keratin, collagen, Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamins A, C, and E, and hemp extract, which provides the Cannabidiol (aka CBD) – its texture upon applications somehow sustains.
What I mean by this is you slide the product over your lips and it feels slippy and looks really shiny, yet it doesn’t feel greasy, oily, waxy, or heavy. Lip balms that can linger are often very dense due to a primary ingredient like petrolatum or mineral oil, and they remain on the skin’s surface which is only half the work.
When hydrating products don’t absorb, they help to block our skin from potential damage and dehydration, both of which are good. And what happens after you’ve sipped a glass of wine, downed your daily coffee or tea, or drank your body weight in water (ounces, not pounds)? The balm is on the lip of the glass, mug, and Swell bottle. Seratonical® Love Your Lips remain on the lips throughout our activities known to act as vacuums for lip products.
Also, I give points to SeraLabs® for including reasons for ingredients I’ve long wondered why merited inclusion in items that hydrate. Beeswax retains moisture and protects against UV rays. Cocoa Butter, long appreciated by everyone who uses Palmer’s (your author included), not only helps to improve skin elasticity, it improves blood flow.
Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask $22USD
Available in six shades (including Berry, shown here, which is the original and the first and what I personally use), Laneige’s leave-on overnight lip mask soothes and hydrates while we sleep. Yep. That’s what it does. Similar to the “Why didn’t I do this when I was younger” putting Vaseline on your heels and toes, and then socks, before going to sleep, the lip sleeping mask is something of a game changer during cold weather.
Similar to the truth that everyone snores in some way while we’re sleeping, everyone licks their lips (or drools) while visions of sugarplums dance in our heads. Add to that the outside temperatures dropping, along with it being cooler inside (because most people sleep better when the temperature is lower), and the already delicate lips need an additional supportive snuggle. The balm texture is a tiny bit stickier than the aforementioned lip balms, and that encourages your lips to absorb it fast.
In addition to antioxidants, including Vitamin C, Laneige developed Berry Mix Complex, a combination of raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, and blueberry extracts, along with Proprietary Moisture Wrap™, a technology whose Hyaluronic Acid and minerals provide a protective film over lips that ensures moisture and antioxidants do their work. Waking up with smoother, softer lips during the cold weather is akin to – for me anyway – starting the day with hair that isn’t frizzy. Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask is the satin pillowcase for the lips.
Tint
Presuming that sometime in 2022 (prayers up, good vibes, positive mindset), the world’s inhabitants will move closer to a safe place as far as truly contagious virus goes. While we’re not yet there, and all of us are trying to live lives that resemble positive and predictable, the question “What can we do to feel at least somewhat better?” One of the answers is making face.
While you may not want or need to do more than what I call the Five-Minute Face (primer, complexion, lashes, brows, cheeks, lips), you will feel better when you do something for your visage that elevates you in appearance and spirit. While you could be wearing a mask or face covering the better part of your day, and that means no one sees your perfectly contoured cheek, and the slimmer chin you shaded (or because you lost close to 30 pounds), you know how you look. And that’s enough.
So, because our lips can look particularly awesome after we’ve scrubbed and balmed without wrecking the thing that’s fastened around our ears and/or the back of our heads, and because I am still mourning MAC’s discontinue of PatentPolish Lip Pencil in Spontaneous. Trust me: when you see this available on eBay, Amazon, or any interwebs vendor, buy it. Spontaneous was a pink that flattered every single skin tone. Every. Single. Skin tone.
Sorry. Returning to you now. Here are three products that will not bleed onto the face coverings’ interiors (and if they do, they won’t be seen by anyone who looks at your face):
JOAH® Color Squad Cream Lipstick $5.99USD from the brand (prices vary around US mass retailers)
I’m on record as someone who prefers, and almost exclusively wears, colors with shine. The matte lip is not my jam. When I discovered this product by JOAH® last month, the game changed. I’d decided to tone down the blonde (healthier hair before I turn 50 is an active goal), and when you have really fair skin, some warmth helps you look more like your best self. And my search for lipsticks that were seasonless and wearable under the masks led me to this product.
Rich with shea butter and argan oil, Color Squad Cream Lipstick feels smooth going on and it doesn’t tug at the lips (because sometimes they’re not super soft when it’s 27° Fahrenheit). While I am someone who quickly and carefully licks the rim of my glass or cup when I’m wearing lip color, pigments will still deposit. While JOAH’s lipstick doesn’t imprint permanently on the mouth, it resides there all day. My chosen colors – Glamping and Hotter Than Hot – are the always sought combination of plum and pink. I know you’ll find at least one ideal shade among the 20 offerings.
Flower by Drew Bitten Lip Stain $10USD from the brand (prices vary around US mass retailers)
Lip stains can be tricky. The product name of many formulations needs to be taken literally: they will stain your lips. This can be a good thing, and our natural lip color is inherently awesome. Drew Barrymore and her team made six shades of a stain that applies, and feels, like a gel. Besides being cruelty free and gluten-free, its water-based formulation contributes to the lightweight feel and somehow cool temperature. While the pigment remains once the formula has dried down, the colors are present, not intense, and lips remain soft.
Kevyn Aucoin Unforgettable Lip Definer $22USD from the brand
There was no professional makeup artist like Kevyn Aucoin. There is no lip pencil like Unforgettable Lip Definer. Kevyn believed in using a lip pencil that matched the tone of your lips, not the color of your lipstick. The six tones – all various nudes – came of the original Minimal, a pinky nude. I dare say it works on every skin tone, and any of the six shades can be worn by themselves, or with clear balm, shimmery or gently tinted gloss, or statement lipstick atop.
The lip definer comes with a sharpener (which is awesome), and besides enhancing your natural lip tone, your chosen lip color – should you choose to wear one during the continuation of covid – will look better and wear longer.
What are you doing to feel and be as close to your best as possible? Is lip treatment, or color, any part of that? Let me know in the comments. Stay safe and take care of your lips!
