Ah winter. Plenty of things to love about the season: holiday parties, cute snow bunny outfits and Christmas cookies. And plenty of reasons to dread it, including Santa sweaters and, you guessed it, dry skin.

Thankfully, I don’t suffer from terribly dry skin, but I have my moments in the dead of winter. And I know for some people, it’s the bane of their existence.

Which is why I put together my tips for beating dry skin. So get your notepads out!

1. Drink lots of fluids. This is a good piece of advice all year round, but especially in the drier months to keep your skin hydrated.

2. Limit the length of your shower, and use warm - not hot - water. I know, I know. That sounds absolutely wretched, doesn’t it? No hot showers? Yes, no hot showers because they can dehydrate your skin. So keep it short and snappy.

3. Add a little oil to your bath. See? I’m not trying to kill you. A short bath is good, but add some oils - try a tablespoon of bath oil (my pick: elizabethW) after you’ve soaked for about five minutes. Soaking first plumps up your skin. Adding the oil second seals in the absorbed moisture.

4. Apply moisturizer to damp skin. Again, it’s the same idea as above where you want to allow your moisturizer or lotion to trap a little water in your skin. So pat your skin almost dry. Then apply moisturizer while your skin is still slightly damp.

5. Use humidifiers. Not only do humidifiers keep your skin from drying out, they’re also great for preventing illness in the winter as they keep the mucous membranes moist. But be sure to clean your humidifier often and change the filter, though, otherwise bacteria and fungi will start growing in your tank.

That’s it! Not too hard or complicated, but these tips should put you on the road to very pretty and very hydrated skin.

And for additional tips, and to supplement your reading, head over to Faking Good Breeding. She wrote a great post not too long ago on the same topic!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 6:00 am and is filed under Skincare, Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.