Straws Cause Wrinkles?

I thought I was a super sipper when I switched from plastic to paper straws. Hooray for the environment. Hooray for me. But now, alas, there’s more bad news for sippers. Straws may cause wrinkles.

More specifically, straw sipping may cause lip wrinkles! Yikes and gadzooks!! Ugly lip wrinkles like cigarette smokers get. It’s enough to make a middle-aged muddler shout and pout but no pouting is allowed since pouting probably causes wrinkles too!

Lip wrinkles even have their own name, perioral wrinkles. So, you know they’re serious!

According to the bad news experts, the repetitive and prolonged action of pursing our lips around the tiny tubular opening of a straw is what causes the tiny cantankerous wrinkly lines to appear.

Throw in a “generous” dose of sun damage, bad genes, and aging, and then, joy, oh, joy, you’ve got yourself a side of wrinkles with that Diet Coke you’ve just ordered.

TV’s Take on the Topic

The topic of straw wrinkles has already captured the attention of Hollywood.

On a recent episode of Hacks, comedy diva Deborah Vance, hilariously played by Jean Smart, struggles to sip through a straw with her lips tightly drawn in — not pursed — to avoid the dreaded perioral wrinkles. This, of course, prompts much snark from her decades younger companion who looks on aghast and amused at the silly sight.

However, sippers — and Deborah Vance —  take heart.

Marketers and manufacturers say you can enjoy a wrinkle-free supple lip-and-sip because where there’s a problem (you didn’t know you had), there is a solution!

An enterprising entrepreneur has invented a don’t-need-to-purse-your-lips straw. Hallelujah! It’s sort of in the shape of the number seven and you sip/suck/slurp from the top. No naughty lip pursing involved. So, supposedly, there are no wrinkles.

PLUS, as an added benefit, this new-fangled sipper solves this year’s dilemma of what to buy your BFF for the holidays!

Whether these new fancy straws actually win the war against perioral wrinkles is still a question. However, in the quest for eternal youth and Diet Coke inner peace, I’m confident beauty-conscious consumers will flock to shop.

The Last Straw?

As to my own thoughts on this latest wrinkle on wrinkle woes, I can only echo the words of one TikTok commentator who observed, “Just use a straw, bro.”

Or, in the alternative, use no straw at all.  The environment, your perioral wrinkles, AND your wallet will thank you!

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