SPF You Didn't Know You Needed: Lips

spf-products-for-your-lips-7
spf-products-for-your-lips-1
spf-products-for-your-lips-3
spf-products-for-your-lips-4
spf-products-for-your-lips-5
spf-products-for-your-lips-2
spf-products-for-your-lips-6

For the perpetually chapped—an advisory: SPF is not just for your face, for languid days on the beach, or on your left-hand side of your body when driving. It's also for your lips, particularly if you've experienced a level of chap that no amount of brown-sugar, toothbrushes, rough towels, skin salve, balm, or water can rescue. The sun is probably at least partially to blame for that, so here you are: lip SPF that’s a bit more elevated than your average Carmex.

Dior Crème de Rose Smoothing Plumping Lip Balm : Gigi Hadid is a fan, and with good reason. This little pot of lip balm is a good gateway into lip SPF when you’re at Sephora and want something that’s familiar but a little extra. Dior could make Ziploc bags, and we’d find a reason to buy them.

Elizabeth Arden Eight-Hour Cream Lip Protectant Stick Sheer Tint Suncreen SPF 15: Smells like the real thing, looks even better. Such are the wonders of Arden's classic formula but specified for your lips and tinted to a sheer-but-buildable, stained lip color. SPF 15 makes it a thoughtful alternative to the original universal wonder, but it’s slightly less sun protecting than a tube of Eight-Hour Cream Nourishing Lip Balm, which comes in SPF 20. Other perks: hygienic packaging in which you don’t have to touch the tip of the bottle with your finger to transfer product on your lips.

YSL Rouge Volupté Silky Sensual Radiant Lipstick SPF 15 : This lipstick feels like...silk. Yeah, they nailed it with that one. Can't complain. Light texture aside, the color is near opaque. You'll probably forget it has SPF in it, which is probably the best way to wear SPF—when it doesn't feel like something you have to do, but something you want to do. Kind of like drinking lemon water.

Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment SPF 15 : The winner here is the scent. Although there are different shades, everything from Petal to Plum smells a little bit like candy. It's a solid tinted lip balm with a pillowy feel, too.

Vincent Longo Lip Stain Lipstick SPF 15 : We're particularly big on the shade Foxina, which has the appeal of a hot-pink lipstick, but goes on just a hint more sheer. This one falls somewhere between Elizabeth Arden's and YSL's—more buildable than the former, less rich than the latter. A beautiful effect on the lips, nonetheless.

Clinique Sun Broad Spectrum SPF 45 Targeted Protection Stick : This balm can be used all over your face, but the texture can feel thick, shiny, and reminiscent of Vaseline on top of your skin. If it looks like a Chapstick and feels like a Chapstick, why call it anything else? The advantage of this one is SPF in numbers that soothe your consumer-paranoid soul. Why can I have a balm with SPF 5 when there's one with SPF 45? If that's you, look no further.

—Claudia Marina

Photographed by Tom Newton. Of all the things we say about sunscreen first is that it's important, second is that it doesn't have to smell like sunscreen.