Sunburnt lips are a thing of the past with these SPF lip balms

We're all well-versed in the importance of daily facial SPF, but there's one crucial area of our face that most of us tend to neglect: our lips. "The lips are fragile and subject to early and accelerated ageing because of exposure to the elements – especially the sun," says Dr Charlene Dehaven, iS Clinical's clinical director. Similar to under-eyes, the skin on your lips is thinner and more delicate than that on the rest of your complexion. "There are only three-to-five cell layers on the lip compared to 15-to-20 layers on the face, and lips have fewer melanocytes to make the protective pigment melanin," explains Dr Dehaven. According to her, our lips experience three times more water loss than the skin in our cheeks too, which is why it's often more prone to dryness and flaking. Leave your lips unprotected during the hottest months, and you're opening yourself up to sunburn, peeling and premature ageing. The solution is simple: swipe on a lip balm with SPF, and use it religiously. Loo...