Our lips – one of the most important areas of our skin but among the most neglected or taken for granted – until something goes wrong. Then, they become everything. I should know. In recent months, my lips have consumed much of my attention. They became dry, crusty and seemingly insensitive. I was miserable and was afraid that I had somehow ruined my lips forever. If you had told me there was a crazy expensive magic pill that could give me my lips back, I would have paid it in a heartbeat. No questions asked.

I thought I was trying everything, but as it turns out, I was trying all the wrong things and most of them dried my lips even more. I was desperate! I finally found a natural solution that helped get me through the worst of it, but I also knew that I needed to change my approach to my lips. I think most of us do. Fortunately, Naturopathic Doctor Jennifer Ito is helping to answer our questions by offering natural ways to care for our lips so they’ll care for us. She also shares tips on which ingredients to use and which to avoid.

Peppermint Tea & Me: Why are our lips important?

Dr. Jennifer Ito: They’re a very sensual part of our body because they’re full of nerve endings. They play a large role in making us feel female and feminine, they’re part of how we give and receive pleasure and they affect how we enjoy food. We kiss our baby’s foreheads with our lips. All of this affects our whole brain health and the release of oxytocin, which impacts our calmness, our happiness and our sanity. It’s a really big deal. They’re a small part of the overall surface of our skin, so it’s easy to take them for granted, but they have a really big impact in terms of the overall effect on our experience, our sensual experience of things.

PTM: Why is it important to take care of our lips?

Dr. Ito: The skin itself that goes across lips is thinner and more fluid which makes them more vulnerable, meaning they need more care and attention. But it also makes them really attention grabbing, both internally and externally, if there’s a problem of any kind.

PTM:Why should we pay attention when we notice we’re having issues with our lips?

Dr. Ito: From your lips all the way down to your anus, this is all one long tube and it’s all functioning together. When there are problems or inflammation in your mouth and around your mouth, it’s reflective of and will cause problems in your whole digestive tract. This is the seed of health. If you don’t have good digestion, you don’t have a happy digestive tract. Since two thirds of your immune system is tied up in your digestive tract, it’s going to affect your health and your energy across the board. So, while your lips are what you see and experience most on the surface, they may be reflecting the health of your digestive tract as a whole, and you may need to think about restoring your health in a bigger way.

Another reason to pay attention is that we touch our mouth all the time and food and forks come in contact with it. Once you have any kind of break in your skin and that barrier is compromised – the crustiness or split or even just the dryness itself – it makes your lips more vulnerable to all kinds of infections, and it can become a self-perpetuating problem. When things go wrong with your lips – they hurt, or they bother you, or they feel dry – you’re going to lick them and that’s going to dry them out even further. It just becomes a vicious cycle, so you want to really jump on it and take it seriously.

PTM: What can we do to treat dry lips?

Dr. Ito: If your lips are a little dry, and you put on Chapstick two or three times that day, it’s probably over tomorrow. But if it gets away from you and things get kind of dry and crusty, then it can really take some time and like a lot of attention. You’ll want to put some kind of protective barrier, like a lip balm, over them to prevent the vicious cycle I just described. But, that does very little to actually heal them. It’s more about getting the lips in a position to heal themselves, which is a lot of what natural medicine is always about. Just setting your body up to heal itself.

PTM: Are there products or ingredients we should avoid?

Dr. Ito: You’ll want to avoid lip balms or products (even natural ones) that have menthol, Eucalyptus, camphor, or any minty kind of ingredients. These things feel good, and they smell good because they’re a bit numbing and cooling, but there’s a lot of problems with that. That short term numbing can actually desensitize your lips over time. They do work in the short term, but they can really very quickly become something that you sort of depend on.

Also remember that where lip gloss or lip balm goes, it doesn’t absorb into your skin, you eat it off slowly and it’s going to get directly into your blood stream. When you look at lip gloss or lip balm, read those ingredients. If you wouldn’t eat it, if you feel like it doesn’t sound safe, then don’t put it on your lips. Vaseline or any type of petroleum jelly should be considered among these because they’re mainly a petroleum oil byproduct, and that’s not something that you want to eat a lot of.

PTM: Are there ingredients we really want to see in the lip products we use?

Dr. Ito: I would probably just go with a healing salve of some kind, or a natural lip balm. Coconut oil is a common base in lip balms, and I think it’s a good one, because it will protect the lips, kill the herpes virus, help heal cold sores and those sorts of things. The other kinds of common ingredients are beeswax and olive oil. Those things are fine too. Mostly what they’re doing, in any of those kinds of balms, they’re providing a protective layer that will give your lips a chance to heal themselves. For herbs, Calendula, Comfrey, Licorice and Lemon Balm are also really anti-inflammatory, good for healing, very soothing and anti-herpes virus.

PTM: What about Tea Tree Oil? I’ve read that is helpful for treating lips.

Dr. Ito:Tea tree oil has a lot of anti-fungal properties, so it would be good if you feel like you have candida going on around your lips. But, if it’s just general dry lips or drying cracked lips, I don’t think that I would do tea tree oil because it has the same drying properties as menthol.

PTM: We’ve talked about treating dry or damaged lips, but besides drinking lots of water, what can we do to prevent problems with our lips?

Dr. Ito: I do think it makes sense to be a little proactive and preventative. I don’t know about all year round or every day, but there little habits you can do easily. For instance, when you brush your teeth, there’s always going to be toothpaste that gets on your lips and the corners of your mouth. As you wash your face or do your makeup, make sure you’re getting any toothpaste residue off your mouth that might be drying. Another habit is that if you’re somebody that spends time outdoors, I would probably have some kind of sunscreen lip balm on all the time. Also, have lip balm lying around everywhere where you’ll see them because that will remind you to use them. Another tip is that every single Christmas, put nice lip balms in everybody’s stocking because winter means dry air and dry air can mean dry lips. Do the same thing for back to school shopping, include lots of lip balm.

PTM: Is long term damage to our lips irreversible or is there a way to restore them?

Dr. Ito:It’s not irreversible. For any tissue, any part of your body, you can increase the sensitivity with practice, focus and care. I mean it’s goofy, but as part of not only just your lip health, but your overall body health, I like the little balms that you actually put on with a finger versus a stick because then you’re touching your lips. So, you can just deliver a little love in that sense. But put it on with that intention, like you’re putting a little love on there. That is kind of a self-care thing. Then notice and pay attention to the feeling of the lip balm going on your lips. If you’re doing it with your finger, notice what’s my finger and what’s my lip because I’m feeling both things at the same time. But your mind can sort it out if you ask it to.And these things increase sensitivity.

That’s why I don’t like the menthol because it’s such a strong stimulation that it actually decreases your sensitivity. What you want is to be able to feel more and more, with less and less stimulation. You want your lips to be sensitive. And you can do that by giving them attention.

 Recommended resources: For regular lip maintenance, Dr. Ito uses Wild Weed Salve and All Purpose Salve from Wise Woman Herbals. Neither of these should be used on broken skin. **Note: The All Purpose Salve says it’s “For external use only.” When I called the company to find out if it’s okay to use on lips, they said yes because it would be in small amounts each time.

Personal note:To help treat my severe lip dryness that lasted for weeks, I finally mixed a base of coconut oil with a few of drops of tea tree oil and applied that regularly for a few days. It worked! That got me so that I could finally feel my lips again and the crustiness went away. As Dr. Ito said, I definitely wouldn’t use the Tea Tree Oil for more than just a short time. Now I just use coconut oil whenever I don’t have lipstick on – which is most of the time.

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If you love being out in the sun as much as I do, I have some good news. It appears that not all unprotected sun exposure is bad for us. That doesn’t mean we can go crazy and spend hours outside in the summer with no protective clothing or sunscreen, but it does mean that slathering ourselves in the highest SPF possible may not be necessary all of the time. As it turns out, a growing number of studies^1,2,3,4 show that a limited amount of unprotected sun exposure is not only okay, it’s actually good for us. That’s just one of the summer skin care dos and don’ts that I’m going to be sharing here as well as tips on ingredients to look for in sunscreen. I highly encourage you to keep reading because this post is full of vital need to know summer skin care information.

How is the Sun Good for Us?

While I’ve given up the days of thinking I could ever be tan, I do NEED to get my share of sunshine every day, otherwise I just don’t function correctly. Up until now, I couldn’t really tell you scientifically why that was the case. It just was. Now, I know that the sun is good for us in a number of ways, including the fact that it’s one of our primary sources of Vitamin D. According to researchers M Wacker and MF Holick in their 2013 study Sunlight and Vitamin D: A Global Perspective for Health, Vitamin D deficiency is linked to an “increased risk for many chronic diseases including autoimmune diseases, some cancers, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, schizophrenia and type 2 diabetes.” It’s also well documented that Vitamin D is critical for bone health and brain activity.

Certified Health Coach Hannah Stoffel says the sun “does a lot of good things for our body. It’s anti-microbial, it’s anti-fungal…dealing with bacteria and things like that. There’s some research that shows that a certain amount of sun exposure is good for acne because at the root of it, acne is bacteria. Sun exposure also increases the production of serotonin, which is the happy hormone, so it helps to lower the rate of depression.”

Recommended Time in the Sun for Summer Skin Care

The key word when it comes to summer skin care and time spent without sunscreen in the sun is “limited.” Hannah says, “Producing your own natural Vitamin D will help protect you from sun damage. The way you do that is not by avoiding the sun but going out in small increments of time where your skin is exposed to the sun and letting it absorb the sun’s rays. That’s going to build up a tolerance and a natural, internal SPF against sun damage.” She recommends 10-15 minutes every day in the summer.

For most places in the world, that’s the time of year when the sun is high enough in the sky for the Ultraviolet B rays to get through the atmosphere. These rays coming in contact with our skin produce Vitamin D. According to the Vitamin D Council, the more skin that is exposed, the more Vitamin D that’s produced. That means that Hannah’s recommended 10-15 minutes if you have fair skin could make 10,000-25,000 IU of Vitamin D. If you have darker skin, it may take longer. The Vitamin D Council also says the time of day you’re exposing your skin to the sun makes a difference, with the middle of the day being best.

As a frame of reference, the U.S. Government’s Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for Vitamin D is 600 IU for anyone between the ages of 1 and 70 and 800 IU for anyone over the age of 70. Many experts believe these amounts should be higher, so soaking up what you can in 10-15 minutes in the summer sun should have you covered or at least get you close for part of the year.

Important note

It is important to note that despite all of the research showing the benefits of limited unprotected sun exposure, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD)  still cites skin cancer as the reason it does not recommend getting Vitamin D from sun exposure or indoor tanning. Instead, the AAD recommends getting Vitamin D from a healthy diet that includes foods naturally rich in vitamin D, foods and beverages fortified with vitamin D, and/or vitamin D supplements.

Prolonged Sun Exposure – Summer Skin Care and Protection

One thing it seems like everyone can agree on is that if you are going to be out in the sun for an extended period of time, protection is the name of the game when it comes to summer skin care. Hannah suggests wearing protective clothing and limiting peak times of direct exposure. She recommends going out earlier in the morning or late in the afternoon or evening.

Zinc Oxide

Hannah also says that using a sunscreen that contains zinc oxide with SPF 30 is the healthiest and most effective option for protecting your skin if you are going to be out for a long period of time. She warns that “The hard, cold truth is that most sunscreens are not good because they’re filled with possible carcinogens.” The Environmental Working Group (EWG) agrees that zinc oxide poses a low risk in lotions and is one of the safest options for protecting your skin because it comes with few health concerns and doesn’t break down in the sun. Studies also show that it does not penetrate the skin in significant amounts and enter the bloodstream. The EWG does caution that zinc oxide in powders and sprays is a health concern because it can be inhaled.

While many products may include zinc oxide, the best way to know if it’s the main ingredient is for it to be listed as the primary active ingredient on the ingredient label. Be sure and check out the EWG’s rankings of sun, beach and sport sunscreens that contain zinc oxide if you want to see the exact products they recommend.

Be wary of high SPF sunscreens

If you also want to find out why the EWG says we should be wary of high SPF sunscreens, read their article on that here. As I replace my non-zinc oxide SPF 100 sunscreen with a safer version, I definitely won’t put as much stock in the high SPF – especially since I’ve gotten a sunburn within an hour of application even when I’ve used SPF 100. That’s why I try to wear my hat whenever possible.

Other Ways to Build Up Your Body’s Internal SPF for Summer Skin Care

In addition to building up a tolerance for the sun by exposing our unprotected skin for a few minutes each day, Hannah also says that we can boost our body’s internal SPF as part of our summer skin care routine in the following ways:

• Eat colorful, antioxidant rich foods such as carrots, tomatoes, organic red bell pepper, organic dark chocolate and organic green tea. These are all excellent choices for building natural sun protection.
• Avoid highly processed and highly refined sugary foods. They will hinder your body’s natural protection from the sun.
• Consider adding carrot seed essential oil to your moisturizer (she trusts and recommends the Young Living brand). Don’t wash your face in the morning, although you may gently rinse it with warm water. Then apply your toner and moisturizer as you normally would. Switch out your skin care from products that strip away your skin’s natural protective barrier. A face wash that suds is a sign that it’s stripping away your natural protective oils.

Do What Makes Sense for You When it Comes to Summer Skin Care

As you’ve seen here –  there are some conflicting opinions on the subject of even limited unprotected sun exposure. But I, for one, will be taking the information and tips I’ve passed along here and put them to a sensible test for myself. It all makes sense to me, but you have to do what makes sense for you when it comes to summer skin care. We are all responsible for own health and our own decisions, but the goal of Peppermint Tea & Me is to provide you with reliable (and sometimes conflicting) information to help you along the way.

If you have had skin cancer or a skin cancer scare, by all means, do exactly as your dermatologist recommends. I’m assuming that’s to stay out of the sun whenever possible and if you do have to be out, protect with sunscreen, with what you’re wearing and by providing your own shade with an umbrella or a tent.

Find Out More

If you haven’t read my other two posts in this skin care series, please feel free to check them out and let me know what you think in the comments section below or on Facebook.

• Demystifying Natural Skin Care
• Skin Cancer Awareness in the Summer Sun

Unprotected sun exposure sources

1. Sunlight and Vitamin D: A Global Perspective for Health
2. Vitamin D: Light Side and best time of sunshine in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
3. Vitamin D Status and Sun Exposure in India
4. Sunlight, UV-radiation, vitamin D and skin cancer: how much sunlight do we need?

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Now that the temperatures are warmer, we’re wearing shorts, sleeveless shirts and dresses and bathing suits. We may even be wearing less makeup. In short, more of our skin is exposed, and if we’re being honest, we want it to look and feel as good as possible. While the overall quality of our skin care routine may be in the spotlight in the warmer months, as we all know, it’s a year-round self-care process that can be complicated with mixed messaging from a multi-billion dollar a year industry. This is especially true when it comes to the concept of “natural” skin care. That’s why we’re demystifying what that really means and finding out how you can protect your skin so that it can protect you.

 
Defining Natural Skin Care

Hannah Stoffel is a Certified Health Coach who is passionate about skin care. She says that the first step to figuring out what natural skin care really means is to recognize that your skin is more than just a barrier or level of protection for the rest of your body. She acknowledges that’s what it does, but it’s also “your body’s largest organ. It is a receiver, and what you put on your skin does get into your body.” So, the idea of “I don’t need to worry about what I put on my skin. I’m not ingesting it, I’m just putting it on my skin” goes out the door.

Keeping that in mind makes it easier to define what natural skin care is and what it isn’t. Since natural can really mean anything, Hannah cautions that we need to recognize as consumers that “just because a bottle says natural cleanser or natural moisturizer, that word alone doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight in and of itself.” She points out that a lot of things that are natural aren’t necessarily good for us and considers petroleum by-products to be among them. “Petroleum is natural. It’s crude oil. It comes from the ground. But do you want to put it on your skin? No, you don’t. It’s very aging, and potentially a carcinogen, so no, that’s not something that we want to be putting on our skin.”

While there are many studies that show that the common skin care ingredients mineral oil, paraffin wax and petrolatum (petroleum jelly) are safe for use in skin care products, it’s important to recognize that these are all petroleum by-products. It’s also important to note that there are other studies that call these ingredients into question when it comes to health concerns, primarily because of possible contamination during the refining process.

For those reasons, Hannah says that when she is defining natural skin care, she’s looking for products or processes “infused with things that are going to help our skin” and that definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, won’t hurt it.

5 Steps to Protect Your Skin

Hannah recommends the following steps to protect your skin. My notes are included in italics. Know which ingredients to avoid. When you’re evaluating your current skin care products or when looking at a new product, check the ingredient list to be sure they do NOT contain:

• sodium lauryl sulfate
• BHA – butylated hydroxyanisole
• Triclosan – common ingredient in hand sanitizers.
• Parabens – mimics estrogen and is linked to breast cancer and skin cancer
• Propylene and butylene glycols
• Mineral oil, paraffin wax, paraffin oil, petrolatum
• PEGs – polyethylene – these are tiny plastic beads found in exfoliating washes
• Fragrance – this one is tough because fragrance is a blanket term and it can mean a number of different chemicals are included. Look for fragrance free when you can
• Hydroquinone – found in skin-lightening products
• Nanoparticles

The federal government classifies most skin care products as cosmetics, and as such, there is no approval required before they go on the market unless they contain color additives. The FDA does regulate these products, but as a smart consumer, you need to know what the ingredients are and what multiple tests have shown about the way they’re being used. If you don’t know what an ingredient is or how to pronounce it, it’s a good sign that you need to look it up.

Hannah suggests using Hello Glow’s 12 Ingredients to Avoid in Makeup + Skincare Products as a helpful reference if you’re just starting out reading skin care product ingredient labels.

Know which ingredients you do want to be included in your skin care products. Hannah says the key question to ask when deciding whether to use a product or not is “What things does it have that are going to benefit my skin?”

She advises looking for the full ingredient list. Only seeing the key ingredients is not enough. You should be able to access this information fairly easily. If you are considering buying a product from a company that won’t disclose the full ingredient list then take that as a red flag and walk away.

The first few ingredients make up the majority of the product. This is good to know because if a product is touting a great antioxidant such as green tea, but it’s listed way down at the bottom of the ingredient list, then you know there is very little green tea in the product. It’s safe to say you probably won’t experience the maximum benefit of that ingredient.

Some things to look for: cold-pressed plant oils, plant butters such as shea, green tea, pure essential oils and vegetable glycerin. The brand Hannah uses, recommends and is an advocate and educator for is Young Living.

You should also know the comedogenic rating of an oil. This simply means how likely an oil is to clog your pores. A 0 rating is completely non-comedogenic and a 5 rating is severely comedogenic. While everyone is different, and plenty of people can tolerate oils with a high comedogenic rating and have no problems (hello coconut oil!), if you have acne prone skin, you’re probably going to want to look for products with a 2 rating or lower.

Oils that have a low comedogenic rating are rosehip oil (Hannah’s favorite), argan oil, castor and hemp oil. The only downside to hemp oil is it must be kept refrigerated once opened.

Feed your body with nutritious food. According to Hannah, “How we look is a direct reflection of what’s going on inside.” As we age, it becomes important to nourish your body well. “Learn to feed your body the way it wants to be fed,” she says. “And believe me, it does not want a bunch of packaged products, it wants real whole food.

Drink plenty of water. This one doesn’t need much explanation. If you hydrate enough, you may not even need that expensive bottle of moisturizer. It’s that simple.

Stop washing your face in the morning. Yes, you read that right. One of Hannah’s friends is a skin therapist, and she learned this through her. When you go to sleep, your body, including your skin, goes into cleanse and repair mode. That means that in the morning, your skin has a natural built-in protection from the elements and the sun. When you wash your face, it’s basically washing all that protection off. Hannah says, “You’ve been sleeping all night. You haven’t been out rolling in the dirt, so you don’t need to wash your face.” You do need to wash your face every night though, whether you’ve worn makeup that day or not. Since you’ve been exposed to the elements, you want to cleanse your face before your head hits the pillow.

Natural Skin Care on a Budget

If you’re on a tight budget, Hannah recommends looking into the Oil Cleansing Method as one of the most effective ways to clean your skin. It works by mimicking the skin’s own natural oil production so that you don’t disrupt the oil production balance. Hannah says that “If you’re using stuff that strips the oil away, your body is going to freak out and over produce, which is what a lot of acne sufferers do. They just want to get the oil off and inadvertently produce more oil.”

According to the Oil Cleansing Method website, the basic idea is that “the oil used to massage your skin will dissolve the oil that has hardened with impurities and found itself stuck in your pores. The steam will open your pores, allowing the oil to be easily removed.” You’ll need two oils for this – castor oil and another of your choosing. Hannah suggests using rosehip oil, which you can buy on Amazon for about $14. Hannah says the whole process is “kind of like having a little steam facial every night.”

Finding Your Why

When we’re thinking about natural skin care and taking care of our bodies without using toxic chemicals, Hannah believes you have to first figure out why you’re doing it. She calls this “finding your why.” Since the process of finding products that work for you and that you can rely on can be a bit tedious and sometimes disheartening, it’s important to be able to remember why you’re doing it in the first place. To help with this, Hannah has a free resource called Your Most Beautiful Self Guidebook. It’s a great tool for getting you started with natural skin care or any other aspect of living a more connected life.

Lean on Your Community

If you have any questions for Hannah, include them in the comments section below, post them on Facebook or email her directly at hannah@hannahstoffel.com. If you have natural products that you’ve tried and can recommend, please share those as well.

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