How to prevent chapped lips and create the best foundation for lipstick

Once the cold weather sets in, I reach for a red lipstick; nothing dresses up a cozy jumper and jeans better.

This year colours such as berry, burgundy, blood and blackcurrant featured on the catwalks, and are now filling the shops.

Dark, vampy tones are not for the faint-hearted but, paired with a warm outfit and just a flick of mascara, they make the perfect dress-up/dress-down combination.

One problem I find with these colours, and with any highly pigmented lipstick, is that they are difficult to apply and even more difficult to keep put.

The key, I am told, to a good red lip is the foundation on which you are applying.

Typical then that, with cold weather, lips often become dry, stingy and chapped – a bad foundation on which to be applying anything.

I’m guilty of constantly chewing on my lips and teasing off any little bits of dry skin (sorry) with the result being that, from November to March, my kisser is usually in a state.

Exfoliation isn’t something that you would associate with the mouth, but it is essential for getting rid of those excess bits of dry skin and provides a fresh new base on which to apply colour.

Exfoliation

Lips should be exfoliated as often as the face – once or twice a week in the winter. Don’t make the mistake of scrubbing anything too hard though, exfoliation should be gentle and not leave you raw.

As I’m always game for trying the home remedy, I mixed sugar with honey but found it far too harsh as a lip scrub. Rodial do a sugar lip scrub with Vitamin E (€30), which is much finer than my caster sugar exfoliate.

There are only two lip balms that I keep going back to, to keep my lips supple. One is Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm (€4.99). It’s 100 per cent natural and contains beeswax as well as vitamin E and peppermint oil, which gives you a little tingle on application.

The other is Lanolips 101 ointment (€14.99). This is serious stuff, more like a spa treatment for the lips to be worn overnight than during the day.

It’s 100 per cent ultra pure grade lanolin and can be applied to everything from chapped lips to dry cuticles.

Oil seems to be the answer to everything in the beauty world at the moment and lip oils are another way to keep lips soft.

Clarins lip oil (€21) has a translucent colour though it is in various shades such as raspberry and honey. It can be applied over lipstick or worn on its own to nourish lips and give them a non-sticky shine.

Lord & Berry also make a cheaper lip oil that has the same effect but without the colour, that you can purchase for €13 on Asos. com.