If you’re a woman and you smoke,  you have probably experienced lipstick getting into your wrinkles.  Not a very pleasant thing to happen.  You need to give your lips and the skin around it special care just like the skin around your eyes.

The skin around the lips ages faster than that in the other parts of our face.  It is also exposed to different substances when we eat and drink as well as to bacteria and pollution.

A person with wrinkles around the lips looks much older than someone who has wrinkles in other areas of the face.  For this reason, it is very important to take special care of this particular area.

Lip wrinkles are caused by superficial hydration.  In other words if your lips are dry, youneed to moisturize them or else they will develop wrinkles.If this is your problem, find a separate moisturizer for the lip area that is more hydrating than the one you use for the rest of your face.

Smokers make facial expressions when theysuck in and blow out the smoke.  Constant use of the facial muscles including the lips during smoking, eventually leave permanent marks on the face.  Nicotine alone has a very damaging effect on the skin but the expressions made during the act of smoking makes it worse.  The ideal thing to do is to quit smoking altogether but if that’s too big a challenge, then at least cut down on the number of sticks you consume every day.  Even this small change can yield positive results.

Another good remedy to lip wrinkles is the lip balm.  You can use it even as you sleep at night.  It will keep your lips and the skin around them moist.  When you wake up in the morning, your lips will feel softer and it will be easier to apply lipstick.  For men, a transparent lip balm is recommended.

You can still treat existing lip wrinkles with the use of a retinol cream.  Apply it to the area twice daily—in the morning and before going to bed at night.

Make-up tricks can help prevent lipstick from getting into the wrinkles around the lips.  One way is to use a lip liner or crayon to draw a contour line around your lips.  This will somehow create a barrier that will keep your lipstick from leaking outside the line and into your wrinkles.

Medical procedures that work for lip wrinkles are collagen filling and cosmetic surgery.  For the lips and the area around it, Botox is contraindicated because when the muscles are paralyzed, the wrinkles will not disappear easily.  Furthermore, a Botox treatment for that area of the face will keep you from being able to speak normally.

Lip wrinkles are more challenging and more unpleasant to look at than wrinkles in other areas of the face.  Wrinkles in general are hard to remove thus young people or those whose wrinkles are just beginning to form need to concentrate on preventing wrinkles for developing.  Remember, if you want moist, healthy looking lips use hydrating creams, moisturizing lipsticks and lip balms.