With no oil glands to speak of, your lips are especially vulnerable to cold temperatures, dry air, saliva (your own or someone else’s), and other whims of nature that can leave them dry, flaky, and chapped. They need your help! To be less alarmist about it, they could probably benefit from a weekly exfoliating session with one of the best drugstore lip scrubs.
Lip scrubs are composed of two key components: A physical exfoliant and an emollient. In the best lip scrubs, the former are some kind of natural granule or crystal — like sugar, salt, honey, or coffee — that gently sloughs away dead skin cells on the surface of your lips. To mitigate all that intense sloughing, emollients like cocoa butter, coconut oil, olive oil, macadamia oil, and/or jojoba oil help work to restore moisture so your lips feel hydrated and soft, instead of dry and raw. The oils and butters also provide scrubs with some slip for easy workability.
And a note on working it: You can apply a lip scrub to dry lips, but I think dampening your lips first with warm water feels nicer. Massage the scrub into your lips for a few seconds, wipe it off with a tissue or towel, then follow it up with a good lip balm. Try that out with any of the best lip scrubs ahead. It’ll cost you less than $10 to restore your lips to their smooth, soft glory.
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1The Overall Best Drugstore Lip Scrub
Consider this Milani Keep It Sweet Sugar Lip Scrub an appropriate excuse to coat your lips in pure sugar under the guise of a “treatment." (To be clear, you shouldn’t intentionally eat this lip scrub, but you’ll be fine if you accidentally do.) While the sugar granules in here buff away surface-level flakes, olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, and a handful of other oils nourish your lips at a deeper level.
Another thing that makes this lip scrub so great is that it's cruelty-free and vegan (most other lip scrubs you'll find contain beeswax). Also, it's a bit less abrasive than some other scrubs, so it won't hurt your lips or leave them feeling raw. It tastes good, it works, and it won't break the bank; what more could you want?
2The Best "Natural" Lip Scrub
The formula for this Burt’s Bees Conditioning Lip Scrub contains just 12 ingredients; and, if you were so inclined, you’d be able to find a lot of them at a health food store, like castor seed oil, vegetable oil, cocoa butter, and ethically sourced beeswax and honey crystals. There’s a little bit of added, natural flavor in here, but reviewers confirm that this honey scrub actually tastes and smells like the real thing. The granules in here are finer than similarly priced lip scrubs, so it’s a nice, gentle choice if you have very sensitive skin or lips. Just a heads up: This scrub contains lanolin (in addition to honey and beeswax), so it's not vegan.
3The Best Minty Lip Scrub
I really believe that invigorating, stimulating mint is the natural partner for exfoliation, on both a conceptual and practical level. If you share this strong opinion (loosely held), then this ChapStick peppermint lip scrub is your guy. Peppermint oil lends its zingy scent, but not its tingly feel. Actually, this lip scrub is as soothing as a sugar-and-peppermint lip scrub can reasonably get, thanks to nourishing shea butter, coconut oil, maracuja oil, and conditioning vitamin E. I was pleasantly surprised to see that almost every other ingredient in here is naturally derived, too.
4The Best Lip Scrub/Lip Balm Hybrid
Most lip scrubs come in a pot that you have to scoop out with your finger then wipe off, which means they get a little messy, you need wash hands to use them, and they are best applied in the privacy of your own home. But this Revlon Kiss Exfoliating Balm in Sugar Mint grants us the freedom to exfoliate our lips on the go, in public, and/or without access to soap and water — a freedom we all deserve. This is really a lip balm, but it’s infused with exfoliating sugar crystals that melt down to a smooth consistency to leave your lips nice and soft. Replace this with your usual lip balm if your lips are extra chapped.
5The Best Lip Scrub You Can Use On Your Face, Too
L'Oreal's Pure Sugar Scrub is another beeswax-free choice, but it does contain fragrance and propylene glycol — just something to keep in mind for all you sensitive skin types out there. Using three different types of sugars for exfoliation, and ingredients like ground açaí and several different oils (included grape seed and coconut), this scrub works to leave both your lips and face feeling smooth, comfortable, and soft. Also, the teeny tiny 20-milliliter tube makes it perfect for throwing in your go-to travel makeup bag.
If you wind up falling in love with this scrub, you can pick it up in a bigger 1.7-ounce tub, too.
