[valentine edit] Your Perfect Lip Routine.

I have a love-hate relationship with my lips.  They're full, prominent, and should be a highlight of my face.  Instead, I've neglected them.   Barely doing anything other than wearing lip balm in response to excessive dryness or covering them with bold lip color on date nights.

My neglect actually produced the aspects of my lips that I disliked the most. I hated the dryness and mild discoloration. I just wanted soft, flesh-toned lips that looked amazing with our without lipstick.

And now I have the routine that gives me exactly what I want.
For some reason, I thought that executing a decent enough skin routine would take care of every part of my face.

I was wrong.

Our lips are unique and special and require their own level of attention.  I needed to create a routine to promote the end goal of soft, hydrated, even-toned lips.  Spring is around the corner, so there's no better time to create our ultimate lip care regimen than now.

Let's get started.

What inspired this post was a revelation after jumping on someone's IG live.  She appeared to have absolutely no makeup on yet her skin glowed like the late day sun.  More importantly, even with a "bare" face, her lips appeared hydrated and moist.  Sure, she might have been wearing some gloss or balm but I was like... "my lips don't look like that with just plain old balm."  

At first, I blamed my misfortune on the fact that I had two-toned lips,  "maybe if my lips were the same shade, things would be different."  Maybe.....but I was using my natural lip color as an excuse for why they looked so unappealing.  When in fact, I hadn't done anything to care for my natural lips.

That very moment, I decided to change my ways.  My lips were dry and slightly discolored because I failed to exfoliate them properly and regularly.  You guys know I take exfoliation pretty seriously.  I try to exfoliate my skin routinely.  I scrub my body and feet every single time that I step in the shower, yet I pay my lips dust.

I quickly turned things around with a few exfoliation sessions. The first time I tried using Shea Body Scrub on my lips (would not recommend, taste terrible).   I needed to use a scrub made specifically for my lips.  There are a few on the market that I can't wait to get my hands on, like L'Oreal's lip scrub which has decent reviews.  Or maybe this one with mint to help promote circulation to the lips. Elf offers an exfoliator in a lipstick tube which makes it super convenient (a travel bag must!).  In the meantime, I've been making sure to brush my lips with the toothbrush after my oral care routine.

That one little change has made a difference in the look and feel of my lips.  I also gotta give props to nourishing masks that keep lips hydrated while we sleep.  I also made sure to increase water intake and stop randomly licking my lips in hopes of enhancing moisture.  The constant licking does more harm than good. 

 Lastly, on the topic of discoloration, I noticed that my lips appear slightly more flesh-toned since I've started exfoliating them properly.  My sheer pink balms actually look better, when applied, than before. Fingers crossed that these results only continue to improve over time.  If I really wanted to get intentional with brightening my lips, I could implement the practice of rubbing lemon juice on them.  A lot of lip lightening videos on Youtube seem to suggest this practice.

Instead of lemon juice, I might experiment with adding a small pinch of vitamin C powder to my serum or moisturizer before applying over my lips.  We'll see how that goes.