Re: What happened to your lips during the leave it alone method?
As long as you don't smear the cream on like a normal person would. People make the mistake of thinking constant moisture means just whacking it on all the time with no regard that it's wound, that shit will never work, and maybe completely leaving them will never work either.
So you have to meet in the middle which means leaving them alone but using a cream by lightly dabbing it on, maybe really light strokes if they get a little better. Also i don't think you have to use aquaphor, whatever feels best and easier to apply without aggravating them.
Daniel Millar stated it as a wound if you listen to his 2nd to last video, where he talks about not blasting water on his lips in the shower, the only water that touched his lips was it running over his face from the top of his head in the shower or a quick mouth rinse when cleaning teeth, and he had some cream/barrier on when doing so.
It just seems like our skin has been weakened for so long and it needs to naturally heal but it needs help along the way, everything has to be done gently to let that skin rebuild.
If you read on daniels cure for peeling lips page some guy asks him do you really need to apply it every 5 or 10mins. Daniel said he only done it all the time to his inner border part of the lip for it to heal cause it gets iritated and wet more due to eating, talking etc. You wouldn't have to apply it constantly to the outer visable lip that often cause its easier for the barrier to stay there if you eat drink carefully, you could get away with like 3 to 6 times a day dabbing it on as long as its on there.
So yeah leaving them like your doing now isn't any worse than smearing cream on and aggravating them, its better actually, might not look better but your not damaging them, but maybe not totally healing them either.
I mean just cause someone got a chunk of there lip bit off by a dog or some shit and it healed in a month, doesn't mean shit really. I remember my brother had a massive boil on his face and the docters squeezed it and the scar looked like a burn and took about 3/4 years to go away. You also have people with chronic wounds that need lots of help with to get rid of it, if ever!