Taking Care of Your Lips

     Hi everyone!  Today we’re talking lips; taking care of your lips is really important.  It looks really bad if you have dry, cracked lips, and it doesn’t feel so great, either!

     If your lips are dry it could mean that you’re thirsty.  Cracked, dry lips could also be a lack of iron or vitamin B from your diet.  When your lips are cracked, licking them doesn’t help, it just makes them worse.  Biting or rubbing your lips with your fingers doesn’t help either.  If you have dry skin, gently rub it off with a tooth brush or a wet wash cloth.

     Make sure that you drink plenty of water and use something moisturizing on your lips like a lip balm or petroleum jelly.  Before going to bed I almost always put on lip balm so it has a chance to sink in while I sleep. 

     If you’re dealing with dry lips, stay away from lip liners and dry lipstick.  Most lipsticks and lip liners are drying and they look bad if your lips are dry and cracked.  If you need some color, use a tinted lip balm or a lip butter.  Lip butters are a mix between a lip balm and lipstick.  They have great color, and they’re really creamy.

                                                                                   

    Maybelline Color Whisper               Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter

Exfoliation 

     There are so many different ways to exfoliate (remove dead skin from) your lips.  You can use a wet tooth brush by gently brushing your lips in a circular motion, a wet wash cloth, or you could make a sugar scrub.  There are lots of different sugar scrubs, but most of them have sugar and olive or extra virgin olive oil.  I either use a tooth brush or I use a sugar scrub and then use my tooth brush.  After exfoliating I apply a lip balm or petroleum jelly.  It leaves your lips soft and looking smooth.

     When my lips are super dry and cracked I don’t try to exfoliate them right away.  Instead I pile on some lip balm and wait to exfoliate till my lips are softer.  When you exfoliate your lips, a good time to do it is after you brush your teeth because your lips aren’t dry and it works better to exfoliate. 

Making Your Lips Bigger

     A lip plumper is used to make your lips bigger and appear fuller.  You can buy some lip glosses that plump your lips or you can make a lip plumper from cinnamon or cayenne pepper.  The cinnamon and/or cayenne pepper irritates them just slightly to temporarily swell them.  To apply it, use a little bit of petroleum jelly and cinnamon or cayenne pepper.  

 Here and here are some lip plumpers.

     Another way to make your lips appear bigger is by using lip liner.  Michelle Phan made a video on how to do it.

Lip Balms

     There are a lot of different lip balms to choose from.  They have ones to protect your lips from the sun, moisturize, all natural ones, tinted ones, and lip balms with shimmer.

Here are some popular brands:

Eos (my favorite!)

ChapStick

Baby Lips

Sugar by Fresh

Soft Lips

Or you can go with plain old petroleum jelly.  You can get little tubes for on the go, and they even have flavored ones.

What's your favorite lip balm? Let me know in the comments!
Becca xoxo

Battling Dry Skin

      Winter is in full swing now, and with it dry and itchy skin.  Combating dry skin is fairly easy; all you need are a few tips and a good lotion.

     First thing is to make sure you’re drinking plenty of water.  Water helps hydrate your skin; drinking water is good no matter what season it is.

     Limit the hot water in the shower.  I know it feels really good, but it strips your skin and hair of its natural oil, leaving it dry.  It can also be a good idea to get a moisturizing soap for your body.  I just use Ivory soap since it’s mostly natural. 

      An obvious fix to dry skin is to apply lotion throughout the day.  I put lotion on my hands all through the day to keep them soft.  Apply lotion on your hands before you go to bed, that way it has a chance to sink in while you sleep and it won’t get washed off.   It’s also a good idea to apply lotion after you shower.  Lotion will help replace the oil that has been stripped from your skin.  I apply lotion all over my body right after I’ve taken a shower and my skin is still damp.  That way the lotion locks the moisture into your skin.   If you need extra moisture, after you take a shower and dry off, spray yourself with a spray bottle of baby or body oil.  

  If you deal with dry skin on your face, there are lots of great moisturizing masks and scrubs you can make.  Honey is great for moisturizing your face and it gives you a silky complexion.  Make sure you apply face lotion every morning and night after you wash your face.  I also put face lotion on after I shower since my face is usually dry.  Michelle Phan made a great video showing how to make a sugar scrub.
  For your lips, buy a good lip balm.  Eos Sphere Lip Balm is my favorite and Chapstick also has some good ones.  Using petroleum jelly instead of a lip balm is also very moisturizing and it’s less expensive.  If your lips are dry, licking them makes them worse.  If you have dry lips, it could also mean you’re thirsty and you need to drink water.  Apply lip balm throughout the day and especially at night so it can sink in. 
  Use your richest and most expensive moisturizer for your hands and feet; they take the most abuse and need lots of moisture.   If your feet are super dry and crack during the winter, rub them with a pumice stone after taking a shower, and then follow with lotion or a special formulated foot cream.  Putting socks on after will help lock in the moisture. 

Some good lotions:

Neutrogena Norwegian Formula

Baby lotion (any brand)

Jergens

Bath & Body Works

eos

 I hope this helped some of you guys!  Have a great week!

Becca xxoo

Petroleum Jelly

      You can use petroleum jelly for so many different things.  You can use it as a makeup remover, but I only use it as an eye makeup remover when I do use it, because petroleum jelly is sort of oily so I don’t know if it would make my skin oily or not.

     Petroleum jelly can be used as an under eye moisturizer; I use it for that a lot.

     You can also use petroleum jelly as natural mascara.  I’ve only done this a few times when I was going to go somewhere before I went swimming.  It doesn’t harden or dry like mascara does so if you touch your lashes it will come off and it’s a little gloppier than mascara.  I would curl my lashes before I apply it so if you blink it doesn’t get petroleum jelly under your eye.  I would also separate my lashes before I apply it because it will make your lashes look like they’re all stuck together if you don’t.  Use a disposable or an old clean and washed mascara wand, put the petroleum jelly on the wand and apply.  Or, you can just put a little petroleum jelly on your finger and apply it.  I hardly ever do this because regular mascara works so much better.  Even if you’re going to go swimming, waterproof mascara works 100% better.  I thought I would just tell you about using it as mascara since you can.

     It works really well as a lip balm.  I use it almost every night, and whenever my lips are dry.  You can use it as a lotion, but it makes your skin feel a little greasy so I usually only use it on my hands when they’re really dry.

     On the back of my petroleum jelly it says it can be use to temporarily protect minor cuts, scrapes, and burns.  When I’ve gone skating before the ice skates rubbed on my ankles so I tried putting petroleum jelly where it was sore and it did help a little.  Plus, petroleum jelly is hypoallergenic.  I usually get the flip-top one because then you can just squirt it out instead of digging it out of a container with your finger.

     Also, this isn't that beauty related, but you can use petroleum jelly to get scuff marks off your shoes.  I use it to get dirt off the rubber part of my Converse.