The Best Lip Masks for Hitting Dryness Where It Hurts

When your dry lips start to flake, Dr. Spizuoco recommends buffing away dead skin cells with a gentle chemical exfoliant like lactic or mandelic acid. This mask combines both in a silky formula.

“It’s a great overnight mask,” Mara Weinstein Velez, MD, board-certified dermatologist and assistant professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, tells SELF. “It has peptides in it to hydrate while you sleep.” (But we wouldn’t blame you for wearing this out and about—it has a shiny finish that you’d definitely mistake for a gloss, if you didn’t know about its moisturizing abilities.)

Best for Cheilitis: Lanolips 12 Hour Lip Mask

Pros

• Antioxidants help prevent signs of aging
• Convenient tube packaging
• Gives lips a healthy sheen

Cons

• Contains lanolin, which some may be sensitive to

Inflammation of the lips (or cheilitis) can be really uncomfortable—take it from someone who once had angular cheilitis that caused cracks at the corners of my mouth. This Lanolips mask can help ease the irritation: It brings moisture back into the picture with hyaluronic acid and glycerin, prevents water loss with lanolin, and soothes with vitamin E. Plus, vitamins C and E both give a hefty dose of antioxidants to prevent oxidative damage that leads to skin aging.

This mask also happens to be a 2024 Healthy Beauty Award winner: “I LOVE LOVE LOVE this! I work in a hospital and have to wear a mask for many hours, which dries out my lips,” one tester said. “After having this on all day, my lips stayed moisturized, thanks to its super thick consistency.”

Note: While this mask can help address symptoms of cheilitis, it may not heal it completely. If those cracks just won’t go away, it’s a good idea to see your dermatologist, who can prescribe a stronger steroid.

Best for Contact Dermatitis: Cerave Healing Ointment

Pros

• Budget-friendly
• Fragrance-free
• Can be used all over

Cons

• Packaging is a little large to carry around

Contact dermatitis—a.k.a. inflammation that pops up when your lips come into contact with an allergen or other irritating ingredient—can compromise your skin barrier. That’s when it’s time to try this ceramide-packed Cerave salve.

“When your skin barrier becomes damaged or disrupted, the first thing you lose are ceramides. So any kind of moisturizer or ointment that has ceramides in it is going to be the quickest thing to help replace that barrier dysfunction,” Dr. Spizuoco says.

Case in point: One SELF tester with sensitive skin says this is the only product she’ll reach for when she has chapped lips.

Original image by SELF special projects director Hannah Pasternak

Best If You’re on Accutane: Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask

Pros

• Prevents oxidative damage with antioxidants
• Good value—comes with a lot of balm
• Includes an applicator

Cons

• Contains fragrance

This Laneige balm was my introduction to lip masks—if it had been around when I was on Accutane in high school, you can bet I would’ve been slathering it onto my lips nightly. The mask uses a variety of moisturizers—like shea butter, murumuru seed butter, and coconut oil—to tackle the stubborn dryness that Accutane is known for causing.

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