If your skin has been dry lately, you’re not alone. Cold weather, harsh winds, and dry indoor air all conspire to extract the moisture from your skin particularly in winter months, leaving it dry, cracked, and scaly. The good news is, hydrating your skin can be achieved by adding naturopathic remedies, changing your home care, and improving your daily routines.
There are several reasons why skin becomes dry. Primarily this is due to the skin’s surface being disrupted and steadily dismantled. Genetics, environmental pollutants, sun damage from accumulated unprotected exposure, climate influences, personal health, or a combination of these variables, will cause primary or secondary consequences. Skincare products routinely contribute to the degradation if they contain harsh or drying ingredients that disturb the skin’s surface.
Normal hydration allows your skin to preserve and sustain its youthful healthy beauty. Hydrated skin is able to naturally shed (exfoliate) built-up dead skin, which allows younger skin to reveal itself, and help well-formulated moisturizers absorb more efficiently. When skin is dry, the elements of healthy, younger, and hydrated skin literally dries up.
How to Restore Hydration to Skin:
Given the core issue of dry skin is surface degradation, primary goals should be restoring hydration and refraining from disrupting its protective qualities. Saturating skin with replenishing and restoring ingredients is the key to maintaining hydration of the building blocks of skin.
Stop drying and damaging your skin’s surface by avoiding:
- Soaps (all kinds, and especially in bar form)
- Drying cleansers (only gentle, skin-softening cleansers)
- Washing with extreme hot or cold waters
- Prolonged soaking
- Abrasive scrubs, brushes, and loofahs that cause micro-tears in skin surfaces.
Start giving your skin the things it needs to stay hydrated and radiant:
- A major factor is whether your diet is providing the nutrients your skin needs to stay supple. Omega-3 fats is an important dietary requirement for healthy skin. These fats help normalize your skin lipids and prevent dehydration in your cells. Omega-3 fats maintain strong and hydrated skin cells, which can help to decrease the appearance of fine lines. Additionally, they have an anti-inflammatory effect that can help to soothe irritated skin, giving you clearer, smoother complexion.
- Normalizing your gut microflora with probiotics has been shown to minimize skin irritations and chronic skin issues like eczema and psoriasis. Optimizing your gut bacteria has even been shown to produce clearer, acne-free skin.
- Aside from increasing your omega-3 intake and normalizing your microflora, consider further analysis of your overall diet. Healthy eating, focusing on whole and bioavailable organic foods, is vital to a strategy for supplying the necessary nutrients your skin needs to thrive.
- Daily application of sunscreen with a minimum SPF rating of 15 is recommended. Unprotected sun exposure slowly facilitates your skin’s inability to hold moisture or feel smooth.
- Use of moisturizers and serums that are filled with antioxidants, skin-replenishing and restoring ingredients. All are crucial for reconstruction, water retention, and become smooth and radiant to the touch.
- Gentle exfoliation helps your skin shed built-up surface layers of dead skin, as if it were healthy and hydrated. Young skin regenerates on its own, slowing its pace as we age. The leading, most non-irritating way to do this is with well-formulated alpha hydroxy acids (AHA) or beta hydroxy acid (BHA). These types of products reveal the hydrated, radiant skin that’s beneath.
- Utilize boosters that contain skin-nourishing oils or hyaluronic acid. Many non-fragrant plant oils have skin-softening properties and can replenish skin with vital lipids and antioxidants. Hyaluronic acid is unique in its ability to hold 1000 times its weight in water. Skin looses its natural hyaluronic acid content as we age; providing the skin with this ingredient can result in a dramatic improvement in hydration.
Please call the clinic to set up a consultation with our medical aesthetician to learn more about products that promote the optimal re-hydration of your skin.
