You may also find yourself doing a little more lip licking than normal in the wintertime—not unusual, Dr. Turner tells me, but definitely a culprit. It’s so common that he says derms call it “lip lickers’ dermatitis.” But what gives?
“Saliva can actually be quite irritating to the skin [when you’re constantly licking your lips, because it] contains digestive enzymes [that] can break down the protective [skin barrier layer] on the lips,” he says.