Do you find your legs turning to itchy sand paper the moment Old Man Winter makes his presence known?
Are you shocked to find some dry, scaly patches along your arms, or even worse, your face?
How about dealing with the pain of chapped lips and cheeks?
Let’s face it, winter stinks for anyone who’s susceptible to dry skin. But you don’t need to live in a vat of lotion.
Here are all the best ways to deal with your dry winter skin problems…
Best Way to Treat Dry Winter Skin
- Use a vaporizer.
When the humidity is low, we lose moisture — from our hair, our skin, and our body.
Your skin cells go into major repair mode at night. A small $20 to $40 investment in a water vaporizer appropriate for your room size not only helps with congestion from dried out sinuses and breathing passages, but also creates a slightly humid environment while you sleep which is great for dry winter skin.
Modern vaporizers are not the noisy contraptions from your youth; new models are nearly silent. With water reservoirs lasting 12 hours and more, you can easily refill once a day and keep a healthy humid environment all day long. - Take your showers in the evening.
It’s important to exfoliate in order to promote new skin cell growth. However in the winter, dry air conditions put your skin’s repair functions at a disability.
A shower before bed fulfills the exfoliating requirement, and an application of strong lotion or balm to problem areas will give your dry skin a jump start while you sleep. - Reduce the number of showers you take.
No one is asking you to become filthy or smelly, but if you don’t need a daily shower, skip it! Every-other-day showering is very kind for dry winter skin.
While it’s great for cleaning, soap is a drying agent. Even the super moisturizing types can’t overcome the very nature of soap: it’s just a chemical agent that binds to anything on the skin, forcing it to slide right off in water. Soap is great for dirt and impurities; not so great for natural oils and minerals trying to keep your dry winter skin healthy and moisturized. - Increase your fruit and vegetable consumption.
Unfortunately, our eating healthy habits change in the winter because fewer fresh fruit and vegetables are in season. Therefore, they are more expensive — which means most of us don’t eat as many healthy fruits and veggies as we should.
Also, winter menus tend to be hot and full of items like stews, soups, and slow-cooked meals. That’s perfect for comfy starches and proteins, but vegetables lose most of their nutrients the longer they’re cooked. So try adding vegetables at the very end of cooking, or eat them raw on the side. Your body (especially your dry skin) will thank you for the extra vitamins and nutrients! - Change up your winter lotions and balms.
Just like shampoo which becomes less effective the longer you use it, eventually your skin becomes immune to repeated applications of the same lotion or balm. That’s right, each application will become less and less effective over time.
You can change it up with just one or two different brands of lotion specially made for dry skin.
Also, numerous applications are more effective than one thick application. Your skin has a finite amount of absorption ability at any one time, therefore applying more product at once is really just a waste. Instead, you should apply lotion first in the morning and then again in the evening before bed.
More Tips For Treating Dry Winter Skin
Here are a few little bonus tricks that you can use to keep your dry skin moist throughout the day:
- Did you know thin lotions can be applied right over pantyhose or stockings and not show? This is great for a mid-day application at work!
- Coconut oil can also be used to treat dry winter skin.
- For lip protection, look for a lip balm that attaches to your keyring. That way, you can apply lip balm each time you enter or leave your vehicle.
- Drink more water to increase your body’s overall moisture level. You see, lotions work by trapping the moisture underneath your skin. So the more moisture in your body to begin with, then the better your lotions will work!
- The best time to apply lotion is while your skin is still moist after a bath or shower. That way, you will trap in the moisture that’s already there and get double the bang for your buck.
- There are a number of natural remedies for treating dry, cracked skin that work quite well. Experiment with a few until you find the ones you like best.
Winter is very annoying when it comes to dry winter skin problems. Your skin becomes itchy, tight, and even painful from cracking or excessive scratching when it’s not treated. Indoor environments are just as drying as outdoor environments due to the increased heating.
Defeat doesn’t have to last until the weather warms up though. Remember:
- Be smart about bathing. Daily showers are a must in the summertime when skin usually feels sticky, but in the wintertime your skin doesn’t need all that soap and hot water washing away the natural oils and healthy nutrients every day.
- Make a concentrated effort to boost the number of fruits and veggies you eat in the winter months, even though healthy nutrition is easier to eat in the spring and summer months when fresh fruit and vegetables are in season. In addition to fruits & vegetables, there are lots of other foods that are great for your skin.
- Finally, change up your normal lotions for specially formulated dry skin compounds, and keep rotating your beauty products so your dry winter skin won’t adjust to the moisturizing agents in those products and reduce their effectiveness.
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