The Secret Ingredient You Need To Save Your Chapped Winter Lips

For as long as I can remember, I've considered myself one of the lucky ones as far as the side effects of winter are concerned. From about November through March (or April, depending on when the last blizzard of the season decides to blow through New York at the eleventh hour), my friends and family suffer from dry, flaky lips, while I do not. A matter of luck, or a favorable genetic mutation? Who's to say.

Then, something changed. Perhaps it's the artificial indoor heat in the office or the fact that time (and karma) has caught up with me, but either way, this year was the first year my lips began to crack beyond repair.

To paint you an unpleasant picture, my dehydrated lips have appeared to molt, day in and day out, to no relief. Although I've tried a lot of heavy-duty lip balms and salves to treat the damage, none of my attempts have worked — until Milk Makeup's Kush Lip Balm came along.

I wasn't expecting the latest launch from the buzzy brand, which officially hits Milk Makeup and Sephora.com today, to solve my winter woes; in fact, I swiped on the green-tinted balm without putting much thought into it at all — I just needed something on my lips at that moment. But it quickly became the only formula that stopped my lips from their afternoon flaking process. A few hours passed and I noticed my lips weren't only hydrated, but actually soft to the touch and totally flake-free. It's now been over a week, and I haven't seen a single flake so far.

But how? The Kush Lip Balm — an extension of the brand's popular Kush line that already includes a mascara and brow gel — utilizes one ingredient that apparently is the key to saving chapped lips: hemp oil. Milk Makeup refers to it as hemp-derived cannabis oil (or cannabis sativa seed oil), but it's oil harvested from the seeds of the hemp plant nonetheless. In other words, it won't get you high, but it will deeply condition whatever surface you put it on since it's rich in proteins and antioxidants.

Of course, hemp seed oil isn't the only ingredient the balm uses to save chapped skin; it's accompanied by a number of other moisturizing ingredients, like coconut and olive oil, along with shea, cocoa, moringa and mango butters, to soothe and hydrate. Oh, and don't worry: The balm looks green in the tube, but leaves a clear, glossy finish on the lips.

My only remaining question: When does the body lotion version come out? I think we could all use that right about now.