Softer lips please

I know a lot of people write about the best lip balms out there, especially in the winter, but I often wonder how many of these people actually live the dry-lips thing as much as I do.

I have always been prone to dry, chapped and cracked lips (pretty, pretty attractive)  – especially when pregnant – and to compound the problem, when I’m nervous or anxious (much of the time) I chew on my bottom lip and make it worse. Needless to say I am still not a lipstick wearer, but I have found some things that help over the years of spending wildly in an attempt to rid myself of this affliction. Here are my top recommended products.

1. My go-to and the best product known to man is the Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Nourishing Lip Balm. It lasts for ages even if you douse yourself in it constantly, smells of nothing and leaves you looking better immediately, however dire the situation is. 

I am not such a fervent advocate of the  Eight Hour stick lip balm, nor of the original Eight Hour cream which is either scented in a medicinal way that I appreciate but no one else in my family does, or is ‘unscented’ and just smells a little unpleasant. The lip balm pictured below really has no scent at all.

2. A close second, the Kiehl’s 1 Lip Balm

Not the scented new versions, I haven’t tried those and- much like when searching for the perfect hand cream, I feel like scented versions are for when you are less focused on function. If your lips aren’t madly dry then maybe it would be fun to have a scented lip balm. I don’t know, I just want my lips to be soft, so I stick to the brief on function.

3. Neutrogena Lip Moisturiser

If, like me, your handbags are an embarrassment of extra nappies/diapers and half eaten packets of raisins, you may also need some back up lip balms for those moments when you can’t immediately lay your hands on one of your two or three expensive tubes of lip balms (see above). The back up must be practical, cheap and still do a good enough job. The back up must be the Neutrogena lip moisturiser.

4. Eve Lom Kiss Mix

I like this, it feels nice and smells good and was a lovely stocking filler from my husband last year (who wanders into space NK and just lets the women tell him what to buy – an excellent outcome for all involved). There is a reason why this is number 4 on my list though – it isn’t quite the dream team combination of Elizabeth Arden or Kiehl’s and it isn’t as cheap as the Neutrogena. But it is a good standby and I would recommend it for variety’s sake if nothing else.

…There we go! Softer lips guaranteed.