I’ve had a dry lip problem for as long as I can remember and have always turned to lip products to cure my ailment. I apply and apply and apply and somehow no amount of petroleum-based product is enough for the desert that is my bottom lip. So I got frustrated, turned to the Internet and found… lip balm addiction? The most helpful website I stumbled upon was lipbalmanonymous.com – a site full of progress and success stories as well as hints and tips to help you through the process of dropping the habit for good; a process commonly referred to in the community as detoxing. Could my lips really just be protesting in an attempt to get me to slather more junk on them?

Well, science-wise, it’s still kind of up in the air whether or not your lips can actually get hooked on lip balm or chapstick. However, a lot of doctors and scientists agree that the formula of the product you’re using can exacerbate the problem; it’s the ingredients you’re putting on your lips that are causing irritation, not necessarily your lips under-producing moisture. Also companies want you to feel like their products are working (even short-term) so they add ingredients that make you think your lips are getting better. Menthol, for example is in a ton of lip products, especially the “medicated” ones, to make it feel tingly and like it’s healing you, when in reality menthol has extremely drying properties.

The next question is: do you slowly wean off the stuff or cut it cold turkey?

I personally decided to go cold turkey (because I’m HARDCORE) and throw out everything I’ve ever used for my chapped lips: Burt’s Bees, Blistex, Carmex, ChapStick, Vaseline Lip Therapy, this weird goat milk based chapstick, and even pure coconut oil. I decided to kick the habit about a week before my first trip to Las Vegas and I literally had to wear lipstick 24/7 to disguise the bloody cornflake in the middle of my face (not cute).

In the first few days of not using lip product, you’ll notice huge chunks of dry lip cracking and flying off of your face- DON’T PICK IT! This is my main guilty pleasure, my equivalent of nail biting. Picked lips equal blood and blood equals scabs and scabs need to heal before your actual lip tissue can. You’re also going to notice that your lips feel super gross in the shower- DON’T PICK IT! I used to exfoliate the dead skin off of my lips every day (I’ve even used an Italy Towel, which I recommend for your body but not your face) and I can now attest to this being the reason I’m not completely recovered yet- I’ve been scrubbing off the dead layer of skin that protects the new skin cells before they’re ready.

Your lips produce their own moisture and go through a 28-day renewal cycle all by themselves so when you use lip balm, you’re interrupting its natural process. The bottom layer of your lips is constantly producing new skin cells and they’re kind of guarded by the top layer so if you pick it off, the new stuff is exposed and dries out quickly, or if you apply lip balm, the product interferes with the signal to produce newer skin cells. This doesn’t even take into account all of the other chemicals in your go-to lip product.

Although there’s doubt that there is a scientific physical component to chapstick addiction, there is definitely a psychological factor; regardless of whether you’re addicted or not it can become a life-consuming habit. I used to apply goo on my mouth anywhere from 20-30 times a day: after waking up, after every sip of water, after every shower, before I applied lipstick, after every bite of food, and before bed every night. So much product also gave me acne around my mouth, which only slightly resembled a popular STD symptom.

One thing I’ve learned from all of this that is KEY in recovery: DRINK WATER! I cannot stress enough how important staying hydrated is to your lip health (and your overall health, everyone knows this by now). Doctors now recommend that you drink half of your body weight in fluid ounces per day. For example, if you weigh 100lbs, you should drink at least 50oz of pure water on average every day and even more if you’re active (even yoga, people!). Something that really helped me in drinking more water is having your own special water bottle. That way you know how many fluid ounces it holds and it’s easier to keep track of exactly how much water you’re drinking throughout the day. I also use an app called Plant Nanny, an adorable incentive app where you water an animated plant while you drink water yourself (and if you don’t drink or forget to water the plant, it dies a sad, horrible death).

If you HAVE to use something on your lips (which I admit I still do sometimes when bleeding is inevitable), doctors recommend only pure Vaseline or anything else 100% petroleum (don’t get suckered into Vaseline’s Lip Therapy line! They come in little tubs that are so cute and handy but they are just as evil as the rest of them).

Another habit that parallels lip balm addiction that you HAVE to break is lip-licking. Licking your lips just coats them in saliva (providing temporary relief) which evaporates super fast and dries out your lips more quickly. Apparently no one knows exactly WHY we lick our lips, but we know it’s a habit we have to drop for the sake of our lip health (if you haven’t figured it out by now, lip balm detox is basically quitting a million habits at once).

So my concluding piece of advice is: just ignore your lips (they know what they're doing). Don’t touch them in the shower, be careful when you drink something and wipe your mouth, be careful when you’re eating, and for the love of everything good and pure, if you’re smack in the middle of the healing process, AVOID SPICY FOOD.