Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Voke Obama, and today's episode is another classic from our former host, Christian Sagar. He's talking about a topic that is increasingly relevant to my life as winter sets in why do lips get chapped? Hey, I'm Christian Sagar, and this is brain Stuff. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've probably had chapped lips at some point. Well, here's what's happening. Your lips
are pretty delicate things. And the one at the top that's your labium supriyaus oriris, and the one on the bottom is your labi um infurious oris. Collectively, they form an enormously sensitive, incredibly flexible part of your body, and it's tough to picture life without them. However, they also have some vulnerabilities. For instance, the skin of your lips is different from the rest of your face. Let's take
a closer look. The outer layer is called the epidermist, and it has a per act of covering called the stratum corneum. Underneath your epidermis is another layer of skin, the dermist. Like the rest of your skin, your lips have all three of these layers. The difference is that the stratum corneum on your lips is way thinner than it is anywhere else on your body. In fact, it's part of the reason people's lips have that alluring red
or pink pigment. It comes from underlying blood vessels, red colored blood filled capillaries close to the thin skin on your lips. Next, your lips also don't have the oil and sweat glands that protect other parts of your body. They're only source of moisture is your saliva, and that's why they can easily become dry and chapped, and that's
usually the culprit here hydration. We often experience chapped lips and cold weather, not because our lips are allergic to winter or anything, but instead because the outside air tends to be dryer, and this also dries out the lips, and this drying out is the leading cause of chapped lips, also known as common ki lightness. Luckily, there are some pretty simple ways to prevent this. First, and no matter what the cause of your chapped lips might be, stop
licking them. I know, I know, it can be a difficult habit to break, but licking your lips can contribute significantly to dry cracked skin. The saliva evaporates quickly, taking with it any moisture that was already on your lips and leaving them even drier, especially in winter air. And speaking of amazing segues, let's tackle weather related chapping. If you have very dry air in your house, consider investing
in a humidifier. If you're outside, then protect your lips with a product that contains beeswax or petrolatum, which will help maintain your lips hydration. If you plan to be out in the sun for a while, help prevent dryness by using a sunscreen on your lips as well. A lip bomb with SPF in it could help address both of these issues at once. And as always, drinking plenty of fluids is a great move for your entire body, not just your lips. And that's it, well, well almost.
We didn't talk about the multiple other causes of chapped lips or lip bomb addiction, or whether some of the ingredients and those things actually caused chapped lips, which is an interesting little conspiracy theory. Today's episode is written by Ben Bollen and produced by Tyler Playing to hear more about fringe theories, but probably not too many involving chapstick.
Tune into Ben's show Stuff they Don't Want You to Know, available wherever you get your podcasts, and of course, for more on this and lots of other protective topics, visit our home planet pas Stuffworks dot com