natural based

Let’s face it, we’ve all fallen in love with the matte lipstick craze that has taken over 2016. As we shift into fall and winter it would be a no brainer to rock out all of these amazing deep reds, dusty roses, plums, and whatever other shade your heart desires with a matte liquid lip. But I have a challenge for you. Maybe, just maybe, for the sake of your lip’s health you should try something on the cream side this season or get ready to pamper the hell out of those lips when you take that lipstick off.

Lips suffer in the dry winter months, we all know it and we all deal with it in different ways. Lip balms, chapsticks (DANGER WILL ROBINSON), and moisturizers are all go to’s when trying to keep our lips healthy when the temperatures start to drop. Did you know though that using your favorite matte lipsticks could actually make it even worse? It wasn’t really something I thought about until recently and being in love with all of these new shades I just bought I told myself everything would be fine. Guess what, I was wrong.

I live in the south where balmy for this time of year could mean 75 with 80% humidity so it never crossed my mind that I would need to take extra precautions with my lips. That is until they cracked and broke out after a weekend of wearing this amazing Colour Pop matte liquid lipstick that I just can’t seem to live without right now and needing to turn my heat on overnight for the first time. That was when I realized that I was going to need to step my game up if I wanted to keep using it during the cooler months. I’d say drier but let’s face it, the only reason the air feels drier in Charleston in winter is because we’re turning the heat on; but considering that when it is cooler we tend to spend more time indoors, our skin is faced with drier conditions most of the time. Humidity rant aside, I needed to find a new way to keep my lips moisturized.

I’ve got two words for you that made my lips feel better almost overnight: scrub and mask. The concept seems pretty simple, we do both to our faces on a regular basis already so why not treat the skin on our lips with the same respect? First of all, sugar lip scrubs are a great way to not only exfoliate your lips but they’re also excellent at removing lip stains so for me using a scrub is really like hitting two steps in one. My favorite lip scrub right now is the Snowed In from Perfectly Posh (on a side note if you haven’t noticed, I’m an independent consultant for Perfectly Posh). It’s got an amazing vanillamint flavor that I’m loving right now and is full of natural ingredients like sugar, shea and cocoa butters, honey, macadamia, jojoba, and peppermint oil. There’s also another scrub called Orange Cara-Mellow that’s an orange and caramel flavor.

After using one of them to remove the last bits of my lip color and washing my face I follow it up with a lip mask. I’d never heard of a lip mask before Perfectly Posh came out with one and as weird as it might sound, it’s kind of a no brainer. You use face masks for a variety of reasons so why not use one on your lips. Goodnight Kisses is an overnight lip mask you can use while you sleep. It will help deeply hydrate your lips so they’ll be ready for whatever you want to put on the next day. These simple two steps have been keeping my lips healthy and hydrated while I continue to go against recommendations and wear my matte lipsticks.

A couple of other options are to try some cream lipsticks this season and to always use a hydrating lip balm when you’re not wearing any color.