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Archive for the ‘Lip Balm’ Category
Many people can’t wait until the winter season and all the fun it brings. There are many activities that can only be done when there’s snow. Skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, sledding, and inner-tubing are great activities for family fun during the winter. Unfortunately, spending a lot of time outdoors in the winter can often result in chapped lips. Cold weather chapping is caused by environmental conditions that lead to hydration. When dehydration sets in, lips become dry and can crack and peel.
The first cold day should serve as a reminder to start using protective lip balm. Lip balm can protect your lips from drying out. Make sure to apply the balm before the chapping begins however, because the protective waxes in lip balm can only protect lips that are not yet damaged. Apply your moisture rich lip balm several times a day for optimal result.
Petrolatum is one of the many chemicals to avoid when selecting all natural skin care products. This chemical is often used in lip products that are marketed for protecting your lips from sunburn. The sad truth is that Petrolatum is a mineral oil jelly, which actually causes the very symptoms the product is advertised to alleviate. Petrolatum promotes sun damage and interferes with the body’s natural moisturizing mechanism, contributing to dry skin and chapping. If you are in search of a natural lip balm with real medicinal properties, make sure it is not petroleum based, but instead made from natural ingredients such as Shea butter, beeswax, coconut, and jojoba to just name a few.
Beeswax has natural moisturizing and healing properties that make it a very popular ingredient in natural skin care products. Beeswax is used often in creams, lotions and natural lip balm, because of its ability to lock moisture in and does not clog pores. This natural ingredient is also high in vitamin A, which is important for human cell development. Beeswax is also known to have anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial properties as well. Beeswax however is not recommended to use if you do have a bee allergy. Always check your labels, for it is very common for natural soaps, creams, lotions and lip balms to have beeswax as an ingredient.
We know that toxic chemicals can cause disease, so why would we want to put them in or on your bodies? There are many ways we can decrease the amount of chemicals that we put into our bodies. We can use water purification systems to filter toxins from our water. We can eat organic fruits and vegetables. And, we can use all-natural skin products.
Lip balm is an awesome benefit of modern technology. The little tubes of moisturizing goodness can be conveniently carried around in our purses or pockets. Because the skin of the lips is so sensitive it’s important to use all natural, homemade lip balm. Synthetic lip balms can actually hurt more than they help. Often times these lip balms can make lips more chapped than they were before.
Drastic changes in temperature leads to drastic changes on our skin.
Drastic changes in the temperature can have drastic changes on our skin, especially our lips and hands, and there are several way you can maintain healthy skin during the winter months. Here in Up-State, NY we have just experienced it being nearly 40 degrees one day, and the very next below zero. Kind of crazy, I know! When the weather changes like this we tend to notice that it is not only us who do not appreciate the freezing cold change, but our skin as well. Washing with handcrafted soaps that still contain all its natural glycerin, exfoliating on a weekly basis, applying body lotions, and using natural lip balms are all important applications for maintaining healthy and vibrant skin during the winter months.
Why natural lip balms work better, and why they are better for your lips.
Ever wonder why it seems like the more you apply a lip balm, the more you feel the need to keep reapplying it to your lips, which ultimately leaves your lips unsatisfied. Well, most likely the lip balms you may be using are petroleum based, which does not absorb into the skin, like natural ingredients such as Shea Butter which hydrate the skin. Applying petroleum based lip balms on chapped lips will not solve the issue, but in fact could make it worse. They may smell and taste wonderful, but if you are looking for the best therapeutic lip balm, you will be most successful using a natural lip balm with natural ingredients like Shea butter, beeswax, wheatgerm, coconut, jojoba to name just a few.
Living in Spokane for the last four years, I have become accustomed to drastic weather changes. One day it will be 60 degrees and sunny, and the next you’ll wake up to 9 inches of snow. While these changes in weather are exciting and keep you on your toes, they wreak havoc on your skin.
The sudden changes from hot to cold weather, and vice-versa, are particularly harsh on my lips. When I first tried a chap stick I opted for a generic brand, which had an artificial, medicine-like flavor. Now I use an all natural lip balm that not only tastes better, but is more protective as well.
Shea butter comes from the oil of the seed from the Shea Tree of the savanna of West and Central Africa. Shea Butter is commonly used as an anti –inflammatory for sprains and arthritis, skin care, cooking oil, hair treatment and healing creams.
Two forms of Shea Butter are raw and refined. The refined Shea Butter is what is used in homemade soaps, cosmetics and cooking. Shea Butter is great for skin creams, moisturizers, lotions, lip balm, and soaps because it melts and absorbs at the skins temperature. Shea Butter has a smooth and creamy texture, and is effective in treating eczema, psoriasis, wrinkling, acne, dry skin, skin allergies, and chapped lips. Shea Butter also provides a natural UV sun protection of approximately SPF6. Shea Butter is high in both vitamins A and E, and is known to enhance cell generation, and capillary circulation.
So now that you are shopping for a natural skin care products, and are so faithfully studying the ingredients label, as you should; you can rest knowing that if you see Shea Butter that it is a safe and beneficial ingredient to have.
We were very excited this year when discovering we had St John’s Wort growing in abundance all around us. I was buying the St. John’s Wort oil at nearly $7.00 an ounce as an ingredient for my homemade lip balm. Well, when we learned how to properly identify the plant we made sure to harvest as much of it as possible, and make as much oil and salve as we could. This was a big success!
To make an infused oil is simple but requires patience. It is a 4-6 week process that involves taking your freshly harvested St. John’s Wort petals, some olive oil, and a wide mouth glass jar with lid. You will need to place the petals in the jar and add the olive oil so that it is 2-3 inches above the petals; cover the jar and let it sit in a sunny location for 4-6 weeks, until the oil turns a dark red color.
Not only are we using the St. John’s Wort in our lip balm, but it has become a new natural addition to our medicine cabinet. My son has already used the salve and oil on two really nasty cuts he had endured this summer, and was shocked in how quickly the skin healed. We are very happy to have discovered this plant and to learn how to take advantage of all the wonderful benefits it provides. To learn and read more about this wonderful herb, my son has written some nice informative articles, and one of them I recommend reading can be viewed by clicking the following link St. John’s Wort article.
We all experience chapped lips at one time or another, and there are many things that contribute to chapped lips. Whether it is from the sun, wind, cold, or sleeping with your mouth open; the bottom line is the lips are drying out. The skin has lost its moisture retention capacity, and so we apply lip balms to help hydrate those dried skin cells.
Are you addicted to lip balm or know someone who is? Most likely you or your friend are using a petroleum-based lip balm instead of natural lips balms that contain natural ingredients such as Shea butter.
Petroleum jelly is not absorbed by the skin, only providing a short term fix or relief, causing you to constantly have to reapply. This keeps the skin from breathing and can actually make your lips even more chapped. This is a band-aid attempt to fix the problem, and is one of the reasons why people do become very addicted to lip balms.
Shea butter hydrates the skin cells and keeps moisture from escaping by gradually regaining the skins natural elasticity. Unlike the skin on the rest of your body that can hydrate and regulate moisture, the lips have no sebaceous glands or lipids to help retain moisture. So this is why it is important when treating your lips of such dry conditions to consider a naturally homemade lip balm that will actually heal, rather than a synthetic infested lip balm that taste and smells good.