Lip Protection While Snorkeling?

by Danny
(Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Do people use lip protection while snorkeling?

We are new to snorkeling and last year we spent a lot of time snorkeling (and learning) at the resort we stayed at in Mexico.

My wife's lips got cracked & swollen. I don't know if it was from the sun, water, the snorkel, or all of the above.

Is this a common problem and are there creams or lip balms to help limit this?

Thanks.

Comments for Lip Protection While Snorkeling?

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Nov 06, 2014
 Lip Sunscreen & A Smaller Mouthpiece
by: Nicole & Galen

Hi Danny, what a bummer for your wife. Neither of us have had that experience.

But, we sometimes wear a natural lip sunscreen. It helps when we feel like our lips are getting dry or sunburned. We have tried a number and found Badger is pretty good. The only issue with that is that your mouthpiece can get goopy with it after a while. But it is easy to clean off.

Another suggestion we can make is that maybe she is holding on to the mouthpiece too hard with her lips causing the swelling and cracking. This might be due to an ill fitting snorkel mouthpiece. She might want to try placing a smaller mouthpiece on her snorkel, or getting a snorkel with a small mouthpiece to begin with. We have found that the Tusa Hyperdry Max has a smaller mouthpiece, as does it's successor the Hyperdry Elite II. You can find links to these on our snorkel page. This page reviews the Oceanic Ultradry Mini Snorkel, that is made for small mouths.

Hope this helps. Maybe other folks have experience with this and can offer other solutions.
Oct 11, 2017
 Mouthpiece Not Cleaned Properly
by: Anonymous

I too experienced an awful reaction to a not properly cleaned mouthpiece. 2 weeks of swollen, chapped, sore, itchy lips.

I know now to disinfect my mouthpiece weekly. I would wash it, but apparently that was not enough.

Just some words of advice...
Jan 29, 2018
 Our Lip Sunscreen Test Results
by: Nicole & Galen

We wanted to share our test of lip sunscreens for snorkeling. We hope you all find it useful.

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