Home Remedies {and a confession}

My skin is always horribly sensitive in the winter. Who am I kidding? My skin is sensitive year-round. But this winter has been especially bad. Luckily, my future sister-in-law gave me this amazing home remedy for dry, irritated skin that has been a little miracle in a jar. The ingredients: sugar and olive oil. That's it. I'm not sure of the exact recipe, but some I have found on Pinterest suggest filling a jar about 3/4 full of sugar, then pouring olive oil in until it covers the sugar. Easy enough.

I have been using it on my hands once every couple of days and it makes that tight, cracked, winter-skin feeling disappear immediately. But the real miracle it's performing? That would be for my lips...

OK, I have a confession. I'm a recovering addict...of lip balm. You know, that menthol-infused stuff that gives your lips a cool blast before burning them juuust enough to make you want more? It all started when I was a young, naive teenager. By the end of high school I basically never put the stuff away. It would sit on my desk and I would reapply it every five minutes or so. It was bad.

My breaking point came in college when {and this is embarrassing, so please keep the judgment to a minimum} my lips started having some sort of crazy reaction to my habit. They turned red, started flaking, and even when I had the lip balm on, my lips felt dryer than ever. That's when I swore off Blistex and pledged my lip therapy to Vaseline. Always and forever.

So, this brings us to present day. I was recently without my trusty petroleum jelly {yeah, I buy generic}, so I reached for the only thing I had in my purse: lip balm a friend gave me that, although the ingredients are all organic and seemed perfectly harmless, gave the same sensation and gross side effects that my old Blistex did. {Turns out, I need to avoid peppermint oil along with menthol. Live and learn.} I only used it a few times, but my lips have been cracked and flaky ever since.

That is until I started applying the sugar scrub to them every morning and loading up with Vaseline throughout the day. The flakiness is gone and, even in the "feels like" -7 degree weather we're having {ugh}, I'm holding on to some semblance of moisture in my skin. I just really recommend making yourself some of this stuff. Or give it as a gift. But really, keep it for yourself.