Dry chapped lips are painful and keep you from looking your best. Although peeling lips are a common winter complaint, they can occur at any time of year due to sunburn, heat, dehydration, or bad habits like licking your lips. If you find yourself running your tongue over peeled skin often you might want to put the over-the-counter balms and scrubs back in the medicine cabinet and make bespoke homemade lip scrub.

In this excerpt from the book Household Magic by Joan and Lydia Wilen the authors provide a natural lip scrub recipe to remove dead skin, and two homemade balms to revitalize your lips and keep them looking their best.

Skin Slougher for Dry, Chapped Lips

◆ Mash two fresh strawberries with. teaspoon of honey. (If you have lips like Angelina Jolie, you might want to double the recipe.) Spread the goo on your lips and wait five minutes for the strawberries’ fruit acids and the honey’s healing enzymes to do their thing. Then wet a washcloth with warm water and clean off your lips.

◆ Form a paste by combining three drops of lemon juice with 1. teaspoons of baking

soda. Use a soft, dry toothbrush to brush the paste across your lips. Once all of the dead skin cells have been scrubbed away, rinse and dry your lips, and then smooth on some castor oil or petroleum jelly.

◆ Puncture a vitamin E gel capsule, squeeze out the oil and mix it with 1/4 teaspoon of

sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract. Work it into your lips and let it stay on for five minutes. Then clean it off with a clean, wet washcloth.

For additional tips and other advice for you and your home, purchase Household Magic from Bottomlineinc.com.