How to Properly Exfoliate Your Lips

You use a chemical exfoliator on your face and a delightful salt scrub on your body to buff away dead surface cells and reveal brighter, healthier-looking skin. But are you forgetting to exfoliate one small but crucial spot—your lips? We don’t blame you if you’re wary of shedding the delicate skin on your lips, but if you’re interested in a soft and smooth pout, exfoliating is a must. You just need to know the right way to do it. Like most things, there isn’t one correct answer. You can exfoliate your way to soft, smooth lips a multitude of ways, some of which are better than others. Below, we’re sharing two easy ways to remove a buildup of dead skin cells on your lips. Put them to the test, then pucker up!

Exfoliate Your Lips with a Sugar Scrub

Lip scrubs are one of the most popular ways to exfoliate your lips—and with good reason. It’s about as straightforward of an exfoliating method as you can find, just massage a sugar scrub into your lips, then rinse off. But not just any sugar-based scrub will do, you’ll need to stick with a scrub that’s formulated specifically for use on the lips. The good news is, you may not need to stray from your favorite face scrub. Each of the face scrubs in the L’Oréal Paris Pure-Sugar line also doubles as a lip scrub. Try one of the following scrubs:

L’Oréal Paris Pure-Sugar Smooth & Glow Face Scrub: Acai isn’t only a delicious ingredient in your smoothie bowl, find it—along with grapeseed and monoi oils—in this gentle sugar scrub. After one use, skin will look glowing and feel baby-soft.

L’Oréal Paris Pure-Sugar Purify & Unclog Face Scrub: It’s no mistake that this scrub looks just like the inside of a kiwi—it’s actually formulated with kiwi seeds. Besides its fruity appearance, the scrub leaves skin feeling clean, with dirt, oil and impurities removed.  

L’Oréal Paris Pure-Sugar Nourish & Soften Face Scrub: Looking for a new way to indulge in chocolate? We may have an idea, this buttery-soft sugar scrub formulated with finely crushed cocoa makes lips look softer and smoother. You can’t eat it, but when your lips are smooth and comforted, your cravings might just disappear.

Regardless of which sugar scrub you use, you’ll want to follow a few simple steps. Start with clean, dry lips—that means your lipstick should already be removed. Then, pick up a small amount of scrub with your finger and smooth it onto your lips. Wet one of your fingers, then use it to massage the scrub over your pout. Lastly, rinse off with lukewarm water and follow with your favorite lip balm, salve, emollient or conditioner.

Remove Buildup with a Cleansing Tool

Prefer a more high-tech way to kick dead lip cells to the curb? We know just the thing. Take your lip routine to the next level by giving your Clarisonic facial cleansing brush a new purpose—to buff away a build-up of dead cells on your lips. That’s right, you can use any Clarisonic model to gently smooth away dry skin on your lips so long as you pair it with the right brush head. Clarisonic brush heads, like the Delicate Brush Head, Sensitive Brush Head, and Radiance Brush Head are gentle enough for your lips; you won’t need to worry about overdoing it. And if you aren’t sure which brush head to pick, Clarisonic offers a kit to keep things simple.

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The Infinitely Better Lips Lip Cleansing Kit, contains a limited-edition Radiance Brush Head, a mini of the Refreshing Cleansing Gel, and a NYX Professional Makeup Epic Ink Lip Dye. As you know, the time it’s most essential to have smooth lips is when you’re about to apply a lip color—especially a stain or liquid lipstick—and that’s where your Clarisonic comes in. Before lacquering your lips, pop a brush head on and get to work. Whether you wet the brush head first is up to you, either way you’ll be removing unwanted flakes. Afterwards, smooth on your lip color and you’re good to go. And don’t forget, when it comes time to remove your lipstick, you can reach for your Clarisonic again. Wet the brush head and apply the kit’s included Refreshing Cleansing Gel, then bid farewell to even your most stubborn lip colors.