when ur lips are chapped, why does licking them make them worse?
In: Biology
Licking your lips can make them more chapped due to the evaporation of saliva. When you lick your lips, the saliva adds temporary moisture, but it quickly evaporates, taking away the natural moisture from your lips. This evaporation process can lead to increased dryness. Moreover, the enzymes in saliva, which are meant to aid in digestion, can also irritate the delicate skin of your lips, further contributing to dryness and chapping. Using a lip balm or moisturizer is a better way to keep your lips hydrated.
It’s not water that keeps your skin moisturized (your skin is mostly waterproof), but *oil*. Your lips basically get chapped when the protective oil barrier has worn away. Licking at them only makes this *worse*.
Instead, applying fats like vaseline or lanolin is a much more effective solution.
You have digestive enzymes in your saliva that can irritate your lips. But, more importantly, when the saliva evaporates, it saps moisture from your lips, making them even dryer than they were before.
Two things screw up your lips.
One is that the moisture is evaporating. How fast that happens is a function of how much moisture there is. So when you lick them you add more moisture, which ends up sapping even more moisture out of your lips.
Another is that your saliva’s meant to help a little with digestion. So if your lips are already a little damaged this doesn’t help.
The reason lip balms help is they’re made out of oils and other things that don’t evaporate quickly. It’s kind of like you’ve sealed off your lips. Since air can’t get to them, moisture can’t evaporate out, so your lips can heal the damage and get back to normal faster.
This is the same reason you can’t really moisturize your hands with water. You need a lotion or a balm to seal off the skin and stop evaporation from happening or else it gets worse. Keep in mind both chapped lips and dry skin indicate damage has already happened a little: your skin’s supposed to prevent this from happening but sometimes things go wrong. Once it’s a little damaged, wetting the skin can make a little problem become a big problem.
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