You already know lip gloss is key when it comes to adding shine to your lips, but did you know it can do more than make your lips pop? Key ingredients in lip gloss can actually make your lips appear healthier!
Nourished, hydrated, and healthy lips will make all your lip products work much more effectively. You’ll get more shine for your buck! Key ingredients in lip gloss such as squalane, jojoba seed oil, and rosehip fruit oil will help smooth, soften, and hydrate your lips each time you use the gloss. Read on to find out more about these key ingredients.
Why Does It Matter What’s in My Lip Gloss?
Do you normally pick your lip gloss for the color or for the benefits? If you pick for the color only, you’re probably wondering why it matters what’s in your lip gloss. As long as your lips look good, that’s all that matters, right? Wrong!
Makeup and beauty products are not strictly monitored by the FDA, so there are very few restrictions on what’s in your lip gloss. If you look closely at an ingredient list, you might discover that there are some very unpleasant ingredients included. This would be gross for any makeup, but for something that goes on your lips and in your mouth? Major ick!
It’s important to pay attention to what’s in your makeup and beauty products to ensure that your products are using clean, natural ingredients whenever possible. If you are vegan, also check to see if the product is plant or animal-based and if it was tested on animals. Kaja Beauty’s Gloss Shot is a vegan, cruelty-free lip gloss with many beneficial ingredients.
In addition to picking products that have safe ingredients, it’s also important to make sure you pick products whose ingredients benefit your body and skin. You might want pink, shiny lips but wouldn’t it be great if your lips also got softer and more nourished each time you put that lip gloss on?
There are a ton of beauty products out there to hydrate and nourish your lips. While these products are helpful, you won’t need to use them as often if you are getting the same benefits from your lip gloss. Using a lip gloss with benefits to help your lips will make that lip gloss twice as effective!
Squalane: To Soften, Nourish, and Moisturize
Squalane is one ingredient found in high-quality lip glosses that can be hugely beneficial to your lips. It’s a moisturizer that can provide hydration and nourishment to your skin.
Our bodies naturally produce oils to keep our skin hydrated and squalane mimics these natural oils. Oil glands naturally produce squalene, which becomes squalane once hydrogenated. They are so similar in purpose and function that they differ by only one letter!
How Does Squalane Work?
At some point, you’ve probably had dry skin or chapped lips and relied on creams and moisturizers to hydrate again. You might not realize exactly how these work, however. When your skin or lips get dry, the outer layer of skin peels away which leaves cracks behind. In order to repair dry skin or chapped lips, you need to fill in these cracks.
An emollient fills these cracks with a fatty substance to help make skin appear smooth again. Squalane acts as an emollient in lip gloss, smoothing and hydrating your lips. The skin on your lips is extremely delicate, but squalane is gentle enough to add hydration without causing damage to the delicate skin. What a powerful ingredient!
What Else Can Squalane Do?
It’s beginning to sound like squalane is a miracle ingredient, but there are even more things it can do! Squalane is also a natural antioxidant, which means it has the ability to help your body fight off free radicals. Free radicals can harm your body if too much build-up, so antioxidants are extremely important to keep the levels down.
Squalane is known to help protect your skin from environmental damage. You might not realize it, but each day your skin is exposed to harm caused by the sun, pollution, and more. Having an extra barrier in your lip gloss is a powerful weapon.
When it’s not included in lip gloss, squalane can also be found in hair and beauty products. It can be added to moisturizers to help nourish the face and skin. It can also be found in oils meant to help dry hair and damaged ends, as well as oils to moisturize your cuticles. With all these varied benefits, squalane is a very beneficial ingredient in your lip gloss or any other beauty product!
Jojoba Seed Oil: To Hydrate
Another key ingredient in lip gloss is jojoba seed oil, which provides additional hydration to your lips. This oil is cold-pressed from the nuts of a desert shrub and used in many beauty products for its various helpful properties.
Jojoba seed oil has a similar molecular structure to sebum, which is naturally produced by the body.
Adding jojoba seed oil to lip gloss will keep your lips moisturized while preventing excess oil. Keep your eyes out for this ingredient in your lip gloss if you want perfectly glossy lips without being greasy or sticky.
What Else Can Jojoba Seed Oil Do?
Similar to squalane, jojoba seed oil has multiple benefits to the skin and body. In addition to soothing dry, chapped lips and providing extra hydration, it can also add shine to lips.
This oil is rich in Vitamin E, which is an antioxidant to protect against sun damage and premature signs of aging. We often think of the sun as causing damage to our face and skin, but it can also damage our lips.
Jojoba seed oil is hypoallergenic and can be used on even the most sensitive skin. All of these benefits and jojoba seed oil also has a long shelf-life so it will remain beneficial in your lip gloss as long as you’re using it. What an amazing ingredient!
Rosehip Fruit Oil: To Smooth and Soften
A final key ingredient to discuss is another oil. Rosehip fruit oil has been used for centuries and has numerous benefits in skincare and makeup.
You’re probably used to seeing roses in a vase, but these beautiful flowers grow naturally on a bush. Once the roses bloom and die, small fruit is left behind on the bush. It’s from these fruits that rosehip fruit oil is made.
How Does Rosehip Fruit Oil Work?
Rosehip fruits are very rich in Vitamins A and C. Although these fruits are not commonly eaten, they contain as much or more Vitamin C than eating an orange!
Vitamin A helps support your body’s immune system. A healthy immune system will naturally maintain moisture which will lead to more hydrated and softer-feeling lips.
What Else Can Rosehip Fruit Oil Do?
Not just for antioxidant and moisture benefits, rosehip fruit oil can help your skin and lips in a number of other ways. If you have discoloration on your lips, using a lip gloss with rosehip oil can help lighten the discoloration.
Wrapping It Up
Now that you’ve learned about the many ways lip gloss can include beneficial ingredients, you might be looking at your lip gloss differently. Lip gloss can be so much more than shiny lips, it can also be full of vitamins and antioxidants to help your body and skin.
Some of the key ingredients to look for in lip gloss are squalane, jojoba seed oil, and rosehip fruit oil. These ingredients will hydrate, smoothen, nourish, and soften your lips while providing color and shine to your lips. Lip gloss is more than just to make your lips pop. Shiny lips can be healthy lips, so pick a lip gloss full of these beneficial ingredients!
Sources:
Squalane Benefits For Skin And Hair | Healthline
Jojoba Oil Benefits | Prevention