RE: [Harp-L] winter lip syndrome

[Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

For years I've sworn by a little tube of stuff you can buy here called Cymex. It's supposed to be for soothing cold sores (it's not that antiviral stuff though). It is a thin white cream, totally non-greasy, tasteless, scentless and it does NOT clog up the mouthpiece holes. A tiny tube of it costs about two quid and will last me at least six months. Just the merest dab on the lips sees you through a long evening and you can use it as often as you like. In fact, they were selling it in Poundland for a quid and I now have a lifetime's supply.  :-)  There's bound to be a US equivalent.
> in case anyone else has Winter Lip Syndrome, where  the lips, for whatever reason,  slide so ineffectively and unpredictably, that the mpc holes seem to be even more of a moving target than usual, and just spraying water on the mpc seems to be not The Answer....Dick Gardner sent me some advice, and I tweaked it a bit with really good results.
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> .... drag yourself past the local fairly-priced grocery store to what will surely be an overpriced  health food store..(Whole Foods, I'm talking about you) ...get some 100% vegetable glycerin (free range, organic, shade-grown, sustainably harvested) , used for sweetening things...put a small amount into an empty container of lip balm.... add a small layer of sponge, and some water....
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> dip a finger (one of the clean ones, if you have a choice) into the sponge, get a small bit of the glycerin water, apply very sparingly, as needed to either the mpc or the lips....
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> this kind of fixed things nicely for me... might help....and , after a week or so of using it, doesn't seem to make for a sticky instrument...
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> If you have WLS, and your health plan considers it a Pre-Existing Condition,  try this and like it, forget that bit about it coming from Dick, it's totally my own invention...... if you try it and hate it, It's dick's suggestion.
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> DIck added "use only a small amount, or you'll end up sliding an octave above where you were aiming...."
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>  If it fails totally, the glycerin is a fine sweetener for things that need sweetening...gin, whatever, I suppose.
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> If you somehow have "health" reasons for not doing this, please don't tell me... thanks
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> happy thanksgiving
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> jk
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