Hi my lips don't go white anymore, but they can feel dry hence I still use coconut oil as a moisturiser.
I find it odd that your top lip is responding but bottom lip is taking time to catch up with the top lip, my lips both top and bottom were in same condition always.

This is fungus, if you do the soak properly you will see that the lips become impossible to peel because the saline solution of the soak cleans top of the skin and beneath the skin where the infection/fermentation is bubbling up from resulting in split peeling lips.

The longest soak should be in evening, if you are patient you will find hardly or no build up on the lips especially by day 21 because the build up is at night that's why people wake up with lips which seems to get worse with each day, the build up grows at night.

I am not brave enough to attempt a gluten free diet especially at this season, but would like to do it.

I think that I may need do gluten free diet and still continue with a weekly soak and then stop the soak completely to see if the gluten is behind it which I think it is.

However, I feel blessed that by soaking my lips in the solution I can guarantee myself lips free from peeling which as you must know is a condition which is difficult to live with to say the least.
I hope you reach where I am, and you are freed from your lips peeling. Once over this, you might be able to turn your mind on fixing the internal issues of ec gluten/candida.
Try soak evenings at least 25 mins or do what Jason did.

The soak showed me in black and white that I have yeast infection, at least I have something to go deeper with. before the soak I thought of laser therapy etc, am glad I found a natural and cheap and safer method.

Try gargling with the solution, the whiter the lips the more the fungus, the body is just trying to get rid of it.