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 and 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 Moved From Previous System
Nicole and Galen – Nov 6, 2014 – Lip Sunscreen and a Smaller Mouthpiece
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 that the Babo Botanicals Sunscreen Stick (on Amazon) worked great.
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 Platina Hyperdry II Snorkel (on Amazon) and the TUSA Hyperdry Elite II (on Amazon) both have smaller very comfortable mouthpieces. You can read more about snorkels here.
Hope this helps. Maybe other folks have experience with this and can offer other solutions.
Anonymous – Oct 11, 2017 – Mouthpiece Not Cleaned Properly
I too experienced an awful reaction to a not properly cleaned mouthpiece. Two 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…
Nicole and Galen – Jan 29, 2018 – Our Lip Sunscreen Test Results
We wanted to share our test of lip sunscreens for snorkeling. We hope you all find it useful.