You use your lips on a daily basis to help perform a variety of tasks, yet how much do you really know about them? Below are a few interesting facts about lips you probably didn’t know!
5 Surprising Facts About Lips
- The reddish color of your lips is caused by the blood vessels beneath them.The skin of your lips is far thinner than most of the skin covering the rest of your body, making the blood vessels beneath your lips far more visible than those beneath the rest of your skin1.
- Your lips become thinner over time.Collagen is a major contributing factor to your lips’ plumpness and overall shape. As you age, your body produces less collagen, causing your lips to decline in visible plumpness1.
- Kissing takes muscle.Scientists used to think that the muscle behind the lips – the orbicularis oris – was a single muscle. However, they now know that it’s a complex of four muscles1.
- Your lips don’t have the ability to sweat.Unlike much of the rest of your skin, your lips don’t have sweat glands1. In addition to prohibiting your lips from sweating, their lack of sweat glands also causes them to dry out faster than the rest of your skin1.
- Licking your lips actually dries them out.Even though licking your lips may seem like it provides much needed moisture, it actually does the exact opposite! As your saliva dries it actually pulls moisture, drying your lips out faster2.
1 – Huffington Post (August 16, 2013). 13 Amazing facts about your lips [Huff Post Science web post]. Retrieved October 2, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/amazing-facts-lips_n_3762886.html
2 – WebMD (no date). Why are my lips chapped [Healthy Beauty web post]. Retrieved October 2, 2015, from http://www.webmd.com/beauty/lips-smile/end-chapped-lips
