Kiss Goodbye to Dry Lips: 7 Tips to Effectively Treat and Prevent Chapped Lips

Step into a world where winter elegance meets lip care perfection—a realm dedicated to ensuring your smile remains as alluring as ever during the frosty months and dry, chapped lips are but a distant memory. For the beauty connoisseur who understands that every detail matters, our curated guide unveils a symphony of tips and tricks designed to elevate your winter lip care routine into a sublime ritual. Let your lips remain luxuriously smooth and beautifully nourished in the face of frost, because a pillowy-soft pout should never be compromised, even in the coldest of days.

The change in seasons elicits cozy feelings of snuggling up to the fire in cable knit cashmere. Daydreams of sipping hot cocoa in a snow-drenched chalet. But, the temperature drop to crisp, cold air can suddenly cause dry and chapped lips. Fortunately, with proper protection and nourishment, you can enjoy all the pros of the winter wonderland season and prevent some of the negatives.

1. Exfoliate Dead Skin

In skincare, we are taught the importance of exfoliating our skin once a week. The full range of care for lips often goes unnoticed. Sloughing away dead skin cells helps to unclog pores, encourage cell regeneration and consequently allow deeper penetration of ingredient actives. While some advocate for a physical exfoliation—a sugar lip scrub, for example—we prefer a much gentler approach for skin as delicate as on the lips. Pomegranate oil provides enzymatic exfoliation that gently breaks down dead skin cells and jumpstarts skin’s natural self-repair functions. It’s an active botanical that we strategically included in our Abaci Lip Balm formulation essentially to maximize the results from the other ingredients.

2. Prioritize a Lip Balm with Hyaluronic Acid

Adding a super-hydrator like hyaluronic acid to your lip care is a must. The extreme moisture retention capabilities of this essential ingredient are cheered loud and clear across all beauty products. But, are you aware that when it comes to hyaluronic acid molecules, size matters? Because of its well-known benefits, it has become a buzzy, en-vogue ingredient, but more often than not brands will simply include (cheaper) larger molecules that are too large to seep into your skin or have any real impact. Abaci Lip Balm contains multiple molecular sizes to create a powerful delivery system: micro HA to penetrate the deepest layers of the skin to help repair damaged cells; low molecular weight HA to bind water to the cells and macro HA to create a protective shield on the top of your lips. And in line with our mission to create the highest quality lip balm, our hyaluronic acid is one of the few that meets the ECOCERT/COSMOS® standard—meaning it has been tested to meet the highest standards of sustainable sourcing and formulation.

3. Look for Softening Ingredients

Emollients are ingredients that fill the cracks and lines in lips to instantly soothe and restore. Abaci Lip Balm is packed with rich organic oil emollients that each serve a unique purpose. Camellia japonica oil is one of the few botanicals proven to stimulate collagen production leaving lips naturally plump. Kukui nut oil is delightfully non-greasy and penetrates to the deepest layer of skin and delivers essential fatty acids to nourish and rejuvenate lips from within. Prickly pear oil—often described as the elixir of youth—is the rarest and most expensive of oils. It contains a high concentration of antioxidants and vitamins that work to repair damaged cells and protect new cells. These potent, but gentle actives work synergistically for pillowy-soft lips.

4. Opt for a High Quality Protective Seal

Many conventional lip balms offer the false promise of hydration, but the deceptive (and sometimes even harmful) ingredients actually keep you re-applying throughout the day. Petroleum jelly, for instance, is a water-repellent and is unable to break through the skin barrier and get to the root of the issue. It only provides the illusion that lips are moisturized, but as soon as the petroleum jelly balm wipes away, chapped lips re-reveal themselves. We have designed our formula with the highest quality organic oils and butters that each serve an individual purpose and work harmoniously with one another to provide long-lasting results for soft, smooth lips. Natural occlusives support the hydrating and nourishing ingredients to ultimately strengthen the skin's barrier to preserve moisture for longer.

5. Hydrate for Maximum Results

Proper hydration is key. It cannot be stressed enough that topical skincare can only do so much on its own. Without proper water intake, your skin will be more susceptible to perpetual dryness and premature aging. A few of our prized ingredients—hyaluronic acid and beeswax—are humectants, which means they pull water from the surrounding environment and infuse it into the skin at the deepest levels. Therefore, the more you hydrate, the more the humectants are able to work their magic.

6. Invest in a Humidifier

During the dryer months (and especially if the heat is on) it can be helpful to keep a humidifier on pumping moisture into the air while you sleep. This is a simple, but dare we say essential device to keep your skin healthy and hydrated. And aside from the obvious beauty benefits, humidifiers can also help dramatically improve any unwanted cold symptoms typical of this time of year.

7. Address the Root Cause

For the all-in-one solution, Abaci Lip Balm has you covered. Our formula aims to dive deep and fix the root of the problem. Each ingredient has been carefully selected and serves a unique purpose to treat the cause. The result? Long-lasting hydration and soft, smooth lips all through winter months and beyond.