How To Exfoliate Lips

We all know you should exfoliate your face to remove dry skin, which helps to prevent clogged pores, and flaky patches of skin, so why should your lips be any different? Find out how to exfoliate your lips using DIY lip scrubs you can easily make at home.

Why should you learn how to exfoliate your lips?

If you're not exfoliating your lips regularly, you may end up with chapped, flaky, and sore lips, especially during the winter when the cold weather sucks the natural moisture from your skin and lips. By exfoliating your lips you reduce the likelihood of your lips getting to this state, not to mention you'll have a brighter smile at the end of it!

lady touching soft lips after exfoliating her lips

Reasons to exfoliate your lips:

Removes dead skin which helps to prevent chapped and dry lips
Smooths lips
Evens out lip tone to minimise the appearance of discolouration
It's quick and easy, not to mention cheap!
Lips will feel sore less often
Helps to achieve a winning smile

Say Goodbye To Chapped Lips

Exfoliating your lips at home is really easy and takes only a few minutes, so there's really no excuse not to do it! You should exfoliate your lips no more than twice a week, otherwise, you may end up doing more damage than good.

How to exfoliate your lips

lady cleaning her lips before exfoliating her lips

1 Clean Your Lips

To make sure there's no dirt or residue on your lips

2 Wet your lips

This allows the lip scrub to glide easily over your lips

lady holding a toothbrush ready to exfoliate her lips

3 Dip A Toothbrush into the ingredients

You can also use a cotton bud or flannel

4 Rub the ingredient into your lips in small circles

Make sure you do this gently as lips are delicate

5 Use a damp cloth to wash your lips

Make sure you've removed all traces of the natural exfoliant

lady applying lip balm after exfoliating her lips

6 Apply a moisturising lip balm

To lock in moisture and soothe your lips

DIY Lip Scrubs For Exfoliating Your Lips At Home

These natural exfoliants are cheap and effective in exfoliating your lips. Find the perfect one for you:

Sugar & Honey Lip Scrub

This is the classic DIY lip scrub, it effectively exfoliates and also nourishes!

Ingredients:
- 1/4 of a teaspoon of brown sugar
- 1/4 of a teaspoon of honey
- 1/4 of a teaspoon of coconut oil

Lime Coconut & Sugar Lip Scrub

This lip scrub effectively exfoliate and is refreshing!

Ingredients:
- 1/4 of a teaspoon of brown sugar
- 1/4 of a teaspoon of coconut oil
- 1/2 a squeeze of lime

Chocolate & Shea Butter Lip Scrub

This lip scrub is extra moisturising, and is perfect for winter weather!

Ingredients:
- 1/4 of a teaspoon of brown sugar
- 1/10 of a teaspoon of shea butter
- 1/10 of a teaspoon of walnut oil
- 1/4 cocoa powder

honey works perfectly for exfoliating your lips

Honey is a well known lip scrub ingredient

shea butter hydrates while exfoliating your lips

Shea butter expertly hydrates chapped lips

All of these lip scrubs can be created in larger quantities and stored in glass containers for extra ease next time you use them.

The importance of our lips

It’s essential to remember the many different jobs our lips have and why this means they need special care including effective lip balms.

Why are our lips so sensitive?

Along with the fingertips, the lips have the highest number of touch receptors in the entire body. When touch receptors are concentrated in a certain area, it heightens your sense of touch, which is why lips can be so sensitive and why it’s so important they’re cared for in the right way.

The lip structure: How is it different from normal skin?

It’s obvious that the skin on your lips is different to the rest of the skin on your face because your lips have a very different role to play.

Firstly, the upper layer of skin on your lips is much thinner and more delicate with just 3-4 layers of skin, compared with 15-16 layers on the rest of your face. The reason that our lips have a rosy tint to them is because lip skin doesn’t contain many melanin cells, so the blood vessels behind become visible.

One big difference between the skin on our lips and the rest of our skin is that our lip skin does not contain any sweat glands or hair follicles. This can mean that the lips don’t get as much moisture or oils and dry out much more quickly. Using a moisturising lip balm like NIVEA Lip Original Care on a daily basis will help replenish this moisture and keep lips looking beautiful.

What to do to get lips that look and feel beautiful

Getting beautiful lips needn’t be a chore – just follow a few lip care tips and properly indulge your pout.

5 top tips for beautiful lips

Avoid smoking and alcohol, which can both dehydrate the lips
Don’t forget your lips when you’re out in the sun – always use a lip balm with SPF
Try very gently exfoliating your lips using your toothbrush
When you press your lips together, blood rushes to them, giving you instantly fuller lips
Eat a diet rich in fruit and veg to give lip cells the nutrients they need to stay beautiful

Finding the right lip care for your lips

There are a range of different lip products available to suit your individual needs.

Lip balms like NIVEA Soothe & Protect Caring Lip Balm absorb into your lips quickly with their light formula and keep them soft and smooth.

If you’re looking for a slightly richer formula, lip butters like NIVEA Coconut Lip Butter contain extra ingredients like shea butter and almond oil and provide intense moisture to dry lips.

Alternatively, when the evening comes around and you’re looking for a bit of colour, why not try a multipurpose product like NIVEA Poppy Red Crayon – a lip balm and lip tint in one!