You had a wonderful evening out with your date enjoying a romantic dinner and you excuse yourself from the table to "powder your nose." Once in the bathroom you franticly check your makeup and look for any wardrobe malfunctions, to prepare for that long-awaited kiss. As you lean in closer to bathe your lips in your new sexy candy red lipgloss, you find that your lips are in no shape to be kissing anyone, because the unthinkable has happened, chapped lips!

It is February, and old man winter has finally moved in; cold crisp air, warm vanilla bean coffee, fur-lined boots, and our favorite romantic holiday, Valentine's Day. When it comes to the most romantic day of the year, your lips must be in tip-top shape.

How can you transform your chapped lips into irresistible and kissable lips in enough time for Valentine's Day? Well lucky for you, I have the inside scoop to keep you from looking like Napoleon Dynamite.

Why do our lips become so chapped?</center?

When it comes to battling weather conditions, our skin serves as the front line of defense. But our lips really bear the brunt of the attack from old man winter. When compared to facial skin, our lips are a fraction of the thickness of facial skin, making them the most vulnerable to drying out. In fact, research shows that your lips lose moisture three times faster than you do elsewhere on the face or body. Scary isn't it.

Our lips contain very few, if any, oil glands and no sweat glands. What this means is that our lips do not produce the natural emollients (aka: moisturizers) like our facial skin does. As a result, the elements of winter, blasts of wind, and low humidity indoors, all lead to a disaster for your lips in the form of dry, cracked, and unattractive lips. Not to mention that your lip liner, lipstick, and lipgloss do not go on very smoothly.

Here are some 5 tips to help prevent dreaded chapped lips:

1. Use Creamy lipsticks to prevent your lips from chapping.
Lip balms like Chap Stick lubricate but they do not hydrate.
Applying Chap Stick constantly dehydrates lips because it actually seals moisture out so that lips cannot absorb moisture from the air, the water we drink, or from hydrating formulas applied to lips.

2.When looking for products that promote healing and chapped lips prevention locate products using antioxidant-rich vitamins and plant derived minerals like,

· Vitamin E - know for conditioning and soothing properties
· Aloe Leaf Extract - offers calming and softening benefits
· FYI: Did you know that Aloe Leaf extract is a botanical extract and its use can be traced back to ancient times? Fun little trivia fact J
· Pomegranate Sterol - has been known to increase hydration and helps strengthen the skin.

3. Treat your lips
Since our lips have an extremely thin outer protective layer they can age faster than other areas of the skin. You want a lip treatment system that will gently, yet effectively, exfoliate dead surface skin cells that cause the lips to appear dull and lifeless.

4. Hydrate your body by drinking plenty of water.
5. Ensure your body is not deficient in B vitamins, iron or essential fatty acids.
These deficiencies can cause scaling of lips and cracking of lip corners.

With these simple beauty tips and tricks you will have soft, moisturized beautiful lips ready to kiss anyone for Valentine's Day or any other day of the week. If you are interested in some suggestions for moisturizing lip glosses or lip treatments, please feel free to contact me.

Brandy Stamper [http://brandyonbeauty.com] Empower your inner Glamanista!