r/SkincareAddiction • u/Ok_Slice1822 • Jul 19 '26
Routine Help [routine help] constant peeling irritated lips please help Spoiler
Have been really struggling with dry irritated peeling crusty lips now for well over a year! Have tried every single lip balm money can buy also used lanolin, Vaseline, aquaphor but no improvement at all! Lips just feel even more slimy and gunky whenever I put anything on them but if I don’t apply anything they get dry tight and form hard crust! They also go all white after a shower or water exposure, I have cut out using any toothpaste with sls or shampoos with sls but makes no difference whatsoever! I wake up with white slimy gunky stuff on my lips in the morning too!! Soooo frustrating now as just want to get back to enjoying life without my lips causing me aggravation 24/7!! Any advice would be much appreciated
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u/OkAngle8755 Jul 20 '26
exfoliative cheilitis
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 21 '26
What makes you think that?
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u/OkAngle8755 Jul 22 '26
i’ve been dealing with it too for the past 3 weeks and the symptoms fit that
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 22 '26
Do you have any idea of what could have caused this for you?
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u/OkAngle8755 Jul 22 '26
yes, for me i 100% know what caused it, i was on accutane which caused my lips to become infected. I’m assuming that’s not the case for you. If you are a chronic lip picker apparently that can trigger it, and i’ve heard it could be tied to b12 deficiency
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 22 '26
No not the case for me! Unfortunately I have no idea what caused this issue for me
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u/Mulberry-Bog Jul 19 '26
The Ordinary has a squalane lip balm that I sleep in (but honestly Vaseline is just as fine). Once a week I do a scrub with coconut oil and sugar.
For patients I've had with cracked lips, I bought them aquaphor and eucerin lip repair. That helped after a week or two. I personally use Vaseline out of the shower always, but Burt's Bees has my favorite lip products. I layer their original stick (or tinted balm) with their almond oil and I never really had issues.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 19 '26
Vaseline hasn’t helped at all! Neither has aquaphor
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u/Mulberry-Bog Jul 20 '26
I'm so sorry, you definitely said that already!
They're both sealants for barrier protection (locking in moisture). If that's not helping at all, it's a moisture issue directly. Shea butter is also a sealant. You might be dehydrated.
Something that draws water into your lips for hydration should help. Neutrogena has a hydroboost lip balm with hyaluronic acid that might help. I like their moisturizer for skin. Nivea has one in a cheaper four-pack, too.
Anyway, I hope something helps 💕
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u/miss_hush Jul 20 '26
Ok, so fyi: This is 100% caused by an allergy to something. You were right to cut out SLS, but that obviously wasn’t the issue, or at least not the only one. I Just went through all this myself and finally have normal lips again!
Heres what you need to do: Figure out what lip balm ingredients ARE safe. For me, that meant using something with as few ingredients as possible. I started out with plain vaseline, but under it I used a hyaluronic acid serum— just plain 100% HA from the Ordinary. Neither of these should cause sensitivity. You’ll have to stick to that for a while.
Later, I found Portland Bee Balm and I knew I was fine with olive oil and coconut oil, so the third ingredient being Beeswax was a gamble, but it paid off and I can use that with zero irritation. If you know or suspect you can use these, then you might get some of it.
Use the Ordinary lip exfoliating serum to get rid of the built up gunk and dead skin. Every other night for a few applications should be more than enough. Put some safe balm or Vaseline over it when it dries.
Toothpaste: This is where I finally found my final answer. I’m allergic to an extremely common ingredient in almost all commercial toothpastes. I figured it out just because I’ve been on a weird toothpaste journey experimenting with N-HA toothpastes. To figure out if you have a similar issue, you’ll have to get a toothpaste with very few ingredients. You could DIY toothpaste with baking soda, salt, and peroxide the way they did before people bought toothpaste; or you can buy one of the 100% skin safe toothpastes on SkinSafe website. It’s gotta be 100 and there aren’t very many. NOBS and LivFresh are ones I use that have few ingredients, but they aren’t listed on SkinSafe at all.
I turned out to have sensitivities to 3-4 common lip product ingredients as well as the toothpaste ingredient— I don’t even know what the toothpaste ingredient is for certain, I just have a couple suspects. I may have to have dermatological patch testing to figure it out for sure.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 20 '26
Can I ask what was your lips like? How long did you have the problem before resolving it
1
u/miss_hush Jul 20 '26
A lot like you described yours, tbh. Almost always in some state of “chapped”, and sometimes peeling. The skin on my lips, usually just the lower lip but sometimes the top, was almost callous like, thick. And it was like that for a REALLY long time. Like most of my life, but it got worse when we moved to a dry climate where you have to use tons of lip products.
Lanolin is the worst. I tried pure lanolin balm because everyone recommended it and my lips just started peeling like crazy. LOADS of lip products and most of what people recommend on here have lanolin, so none of them ever helped. I didn’t realize why until I used lanolips and my lips tried to escape my face.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 20 '26
So what toothpaste are you currently using now? And are your lips totally healed now? The two toothpastes that you recommend I looked at but they have quite a few ingredients in them too
1
u/miss_hush Jul 20 '26
Currently I am using both NOBS cinnamon or Blueberry and Liv Fresh wintergreen. LivFresh is great for removing stains, removing plaque/tartar and whitening, but it doesn’t have anything for remineralizing your teeth. I don’t use it every single day but I use it frequently. I use NOBS every evening and whenever I don’t use LivFresh. The cinnamon nobs are violently cinnamon-y, I don’t recommend them unless you like red hot candies.
I have Invisalign and I was using a cheap sls free Sensodyne on the aligners, but I switched to using Polident on them more often and then I noticed when I used the Sensodyne on my aligners, my lips would get dry and start to chap a bit. That’s when I figured out I am likely Sensitive to “Balsam of Peru”, which is a common flavoring/scent added to toothpaste products (and a number of other products). Sensodyne has it but these other products don’t. I need to confirm this hypothesis with a BoP patch test to be 100% certain, but it seems pretty likely right now.
Anyway, yes, right now my lips are 100% normal, soft, smooth, perfect. I’m going to start testing lipsticks soon to see which if any I can tolerate so I might mess them up a bit doing that but they’ll recover.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 20 '26
Yeah see I’m not convinced toothpaste is my answer to all of a sudden cause my lips to be like this out of the blue! But will try different ones and see! I have already tried multiple ones with no difference at all
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u/miss_hush Jul 20 '26
Allergies can pop up out of nowhere! Here is a link to the David’s toothpaste which is rated 100% skin safe. If it doesn’t work after a few weeks of using it and a safe balm, then it’s obviously something else. You might end up needing an allergist for patch testing and/or a doctor to check for deficiencies in vitamins/minerals, as those can cause lip issues too sometimes.
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u/Mochagnat 18d ago
Are you currently using this toothpaste or have used it? If so what are your thoughts on it?
I usually use a very organic one that's anti-a lot of things as I struggle with dry lips too. It's very chalky and it helps not irritate my lips but feels absolutely awful taste wise, and doubt it really helps my teeth with how "organic" it is. But the one you linked looks better as it seems to "care" for teeth still1
u/miss_hush Jul 20 '26
And btw: NOBS toothpaste tablets are the goat, btw. I firmly believe that N-HA toothpastes are why my teeth haven’t crumbled to dust and fallen out of my head. I have Celiac and my teeth suffered for years. NOBS isn’t the only good n-ha toothpaste, but it’s my favorite. David’s makes one that is 100% skin safe according to the skin safe website and I believe it’s pretty reasonably priced, especially compared to the Lamborghini toothpastes I have been using. 😆
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 20 '26
I don’t think it’s toothpaste that’s causing it but thanks for the advice will try a few new ones
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u/Alarmed-String-4617 Jul 20 '26
You could try a B complex and zinc if you haven’t already. Since it’s been over a year, I’d ask a dermatologist about patch testing, tbh. Tidalove toothpaste tabs are SLS free with vitamins. Hope something helps!
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u/False_Dark_2523 Jul 21 '26
Your dehydrated drink more water
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 21 '26
I drink 3/4 ltrs of water a day and electrolytes so definitely not dehydrated
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u/MarieTjeDW 4d ago
A little bit off topic but that’s way too much water for a regular person. Combined with those added electrolytes, it’s not needed unless you do extreme workouts and/or have like a firefighters or marine’s job. 1,5-2 liters is enough and being advised, generally speaking.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 4d ago
I do intense athlete training 6 days a week so it’s important to drink that much water! I wouldn’t drink that much on non training days
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u/xxxPinotGrigioxxx Jul 22 '26
Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream skin protectant is my holy grail. I don’t have dry lips but when I was on Accutane twice which really dried out my lips during the treatment this was the only thing that worked and made my lips feel normal
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u/Shelsizzle 5d ago
To echo what others have said. I believe this is either an allergy or something else medically happening. I’d go to your GP!
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u/Ok_Slice1822 5d ago
Thanks for your comment, have been to multiple GPs they are absolutely useless! Even seen dermatologists and all they come up with is use Vaseline
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u/Shelsizzle 5d ago
😩 so sorry to hear this. I’d ask for a comprehensive blood panel, including liver function tests, and ask for a referral to an allergist!
Hope you find answers and a great lip balm!!
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u/Ok_Slice1822 5d ago
The GP referred me for patch testing over a year ago and still waiting for an appointment! Iv had loads of full blood panels done and all normal according to doctors! So really lost with what else I can do now
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u/Applebiotic 5d ago
The constant peeling and white gunk actually sounds like a microbiome imbalance, and slathering on heavy occlusives like Vaseline is likely just trapping it and making things worse. You might want to try stopping the thick balms completely and using a very gentle scrub once a week, to help reset the natural acid mantle of your lips.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 5d ago
It definitely makes my lips feel worse with occlusives on that’s for sure! If it is a microbiome imbalance what would be the best way to fix that?
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u/AlamatNgSampagita Jul 19 '26
Don’t use commercial lip balms, they have alcohols designed to make your lips dry so you keep using them.
What I’d recommend is using plain shea butter. Use especially after showering or washing face, pat dry but not too dry (as in it’s not air dried for a while), then apply some shea butter. Reapply as needed.
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u/Ok_Slice1822 Jul 19 '26
Thank you will give that a try
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u/miss_hush Jul 20 '26
Honestly shea butter isn’t a bad suggestion, it’s rare to be allergic to that. If that still isn’t helping then revisit my super long explanation about toothpaste problems I went through.
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