Chapped lips have met their match with this $8 Amazon buy

I’ve got a bone to pick with whoever decided that the winter holidays should double as “make-out season.” As if there wasn’t enough stress associated with combatting dry, cracked lips this time of year, we’ve now also gotta worry about the pressure associated with mistletoe, New Years Eve, and Valentine’s Day?! Sheesh. My lips hurt just thinking about it.

But whether you’ve got kisses in the pipeline or not, winter lips are a major pain deal with, and can be exacerbated by the struggle to find something that actually works. If the bottom of your purse has recently become a graveyard for half-used lip balms that have failed to live up to their promise of getting rid of chapped lips, fear not: I’ve found the simple solution that turns a raggedy, flaky pout into something smoother, shall we say.

Enter almond oil, the all-natural solution that will help keep your lips hydrated all winter long. “Almond oil has been traditionally used in many ways on the skin because of its anti-inflammatory, immunity-boosting, emollient, and sclerosant properties,” says Nava Greenfield, MD at Schweiger Dermatology Group in New York City, noting that it has also been anecdotally used to treat eczema and psoriasis. “It is a great, safe product to use on the lips if they are dry and cracked,” she says…as long as you don’t have any allergies to almonds. In addition to moisturizing your lips, it can also be used on the rest of your face to “improve complexion and skin tone.”

If you want something fancy, there are plenty of products out there that boast almond oil as their active ingredient—like the Aesop Fabulous Facial Oil ($57), or this Kiehl’s Creme de Corps Dry Body Oil ($18)—but when it comes to your lips, you’re better off ordering an $8 bottle of the stuff on Amazon (or pulling the one you already own out of its hiding place in your pantry). For best results, you can either dab a few drops of straight oil onto your lips, or blend it with honey or Vaseline ($4) to create a DIY balm. Make out season, or you know…winter, here you come.

Almond oil isn’t the only thing you can do for your lips to keep them kiss-worthy through February 14th: Be sure to exfoliate regularly, and steer very, very clear of any products with “menthol” on the label.