As far as annoying beauty problems go, cracked, chapped lips rank pretty high up. This painful condition can be a chronic one that, while more prevalent in the drier months, can happen year-round. And yet, despite the ubiquity of them, most of us don’t do all that much to take care of them. You might slap on some balm when lips are feeling extra dry, or when you want to wear lipstick, but most of us don’t treat that delicate skin with the care it needs.

It doesn’t help matters that there is a lot of misinformation out there about chapped lips and lip-care products. To help better understand why our lips get chapped and how we can treat them, we reached out to board-certified dermatologist Dr. Papri Sarkar to find out which common lip-care myths we should believe and which are BS.

Lip Myth #1: There’s Nothing You Can Do About Chapped Lips

“Thank goodness this isn’t true!” says Dr. Sarkar. “There’s lots you can do for chapped lips but the solutions usually depend on what’s causing them to be chapped in the first place. Chapped lips can be due to dry air, cold weather, mouth breathing during allergy season, excessive sun exposure/sunburn, or an allergy.” 

In most of these cases the solution is simple: use a lip hydrator. Lip balms and treatments can add immediate moisture to the area and help treat flakes and cracks. We consider ourselves lip balm connoisseurs, so when we set out to create our very first lip product, we knew we had to put a special Glow spin on it.  The Watermelon Glow Lip Pop was formulated to be an all-in-one product that exfoliates, hydrates, and treats dry lips. It’s made with our signature Watermelon extract and oil, plus Hibiscus Flower AHAs, Coconut Oil, and Coconut Flower Sugar. Its unique scrub-to-balm texture glides on for hydrated, smooth lips with a pop of pinky color.

If using a lip treatment isn’t working on your lips, there might be something more serious at work, in which case Dr. Sarkar advises seeing your dermatologist to help narrow down and treat the underlying cause of your chapped lips. 

Lip Myth #2: Chapped Lips Only Happen in Winter

Although it can seem like flaky lips come on the minute the temperature drops (and while cold weather is a factor), the truth is that chapped lips can happen any time of year. According to Dr. Sarkar, conditions or activities that cause you to breathe through your mouth — like asthma, seasonal allergies, and extreme exercise — are common culprits, as are allergies to ingredients in products like toothpaste and lip plumpers. 

Lip Myth #3: You Should Scrub And Pick At Flakes

Just like the skin on your face and body, the skin on your lips needs to be exfoliated to get rid of built-up dead skin cells. But, just as with the skin, you want to make sure you are doing this cautiously or you’ll risk injuring the skin. Aggressively rubbing, picking, or scraping will not only hurt lips, but could also lead to more lasting damage. To avoid irritation, we recommend using a gentle sugar scrub to deal with flaky lips, like the Coconut Flower Sugar in Watermelon Glow Lip Pop. When you apply on, the sugar particles softly scrub and smooth flakes, then dissolve into lips for instant moisture. You’ll also find gentle flower-derived AHA in Lip Pop which help to keep your lips smooth and supple over time.

Lip Myth #4: You Can Become Addicted to Lip Balm

This myth is technically false. While there is some evidence to suggest that certain lip balms can temporarily cause your lips to stop retaining moisture on their own, that’s only true of products containing purely occlusive ingredients (think: petroleum), which form a barrier on the skin to trap moisture. Semi-occlusive formulas have not been shown to have the same effect, so keep calm and balm on.  

Now that you know fact from fiction, take care of your lips the proper way by using a lip treatment — like Watermelon Glow Lip Pop — daily for smooth, supple, happy lips. Pucker up!