The Analysis of Chapped Lip Surface Properties by Successive Observations

Abstract

Lips play a very important role in daily life because they greatly contribute to the personal impression. In addition, they frequently exhibit rough symptoms such as dryness and peeling because of their low barrier function. Though many people use lip balm to reduce roughness, our questionnaire survey clarified that customers were not fully satisfied with the improvement effect of lip balm. Based on the results of the survey, we hypothesized that the difference in the rough condition of the lips affects the actual feeling of the effect. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of the rough state of the lips from UV images of the lips and classified them it into three types. Based on the evaluation of a professional evaluator, we defined type A as a state in which peeling was confirmed, type B as a state in which peeling was not observed but fluorescence was observed in the UV image, and type C as a state in which neither peeling nor fluorescence in the UV image was observed. Furthermore, as a result of physiological characteristic investigation of these types, it was found that each type exhibits different characteristics. Interestingly, type B lips showed high water content and high TEWL, although chapped lips were generally recognized to exhibit lower water content and higher TEWL than good lips. In conclusion, our results suggest that chapped lips can be classified.