Dry Cracked Lips

Smiling not only helps reduce your stress levels and increases your attractiveness, but it also pleases those present around you. However, conditions such as dry cracked lips can make smiling quite painful. Besides causing pain and discomfort, dry chapped lips can be quite embarrassing as well. It causes one to avoid being noticed at a social gathering, etc. The skin enveloping the parts of the body produces natural oils that protects the skin from harsh temperature conditions, etc. However, the skin on the lips do not produce these protective natural oils, which is why we find ourselves stuck with chapped lips during different times of the year. This is a common problem and can be taken care of with some effort.

Causes

Medically referred to as cheilitis, dry cracked lips is mostly caused due to the following conditions:

• Overexposure to cold, windy or extremely sunny climate
• Excessive licking of the lips
• Open mouth breathing
• Dehydration
• Smoking
• Chewing Tobacco
• Vitamin deficiencies (A, B, C or B12)
• Allergic reactions (to cosmetic products)
• Side effects to certain medication
• Frequent use of soaps or other chemicals
• Badly fitting dentures
• Skin disorder
• Sores on lips
• Diabetes
• Kawasaki Disease (blood disorder)
• Sjogren's Syndrome (autoimmune disease)
• Sexually transmitted diseases
• Macrocytosis (type of blood condition)

Symptoms

The different symptoms of dry cracked lips are as follows:

• Dried, flaky lips
• Rough and red lips
• Sensitivity of lips
• Constant licking of lips
• Peeling of lips
• Bleeding or cracking from the side of the mouth

How to Heal Dry Cracked Lips

Remedy 1
Pure Shea butter when applied on the lips penetrates quickly into underlying layers of the skin. Since it's high in vitamin A, E and F content, it performs the role of nourishing the skin and healing it. Mixing Shea butter with beeswax helps prepare a lip balm that helps protect the lips from chapping.

Remedy 2
Application of clarified butter or ghee onto the lips helps heal dry cracked lips and also keeps the skin smooth.

Remedy 3
If you want to treat your chapped lips and want to revive the lost pink color in your lips, then try out the rose petal treatment. Just allow some rose petals to soak for a few hours in milk. Take them out and prepare a paste of these rose petals. Apply the paste on your lips for soft pink lips. You could also crush these rose petals and mix them in some glycerin.

Remedy 4
Applying a mixture of milk cream and a few drops of beetroot juice or pomegranate juice is also known to heal dry chapped lips and restore the pink color.

Remedy 5
The ever famous aloe vera gel that is beneficial to treat various skin conditions serves as an effective treatment in this case as well. Apply some aloe vera gel to heal cracked lips.

Remedy 6
Since dried lips can be caused by dehydration, it is important to make sure you drink adequate amounts of water everyday. Keeping the body hydrated, keeps dry lips at bay.

Remedy 7
Petroleum jelly or lip balms available in the stores are also effective dry cracked lips remedies. Applying lip balms, etc. not only keep the lips smooth, but also help prevent constant licking of the lips.

Remedy 8
One can also apply Castor oil, coconut oil or olive oil onto your lips. Applying honey on extremely dry cracked lips also works wonders. The sugar crystals in the honey perform the function of exfoliating the skin of the lips.

Remedy 9
Another remedy is cucumber slice. Rubbing a slice of fresh cucumber onto the cracked lips works wonders in healing the lips.

Remedy 10
To heal dry cracked lips, you should also pay attention to your diet. Do you consume a balanced diet or are you vitamin deficient? Loss of vitamin A can conduce to cracked lips, thus, it's important to ensure you eat a vitamin A rich diet.

Try out the different treatments mentioned above and find out which one suits you. Not every remedy is suitable for you. Keeping your lips moisturized regularly and drinking ample amounts of water will help prevent the onset of chapped lips. Constant moisturizing also helps counteract the habit of constantly licking the lips.