Winter Skincare Tips For Beautiful Skin: Keep Your Skin In Tip Top Shape This Winter! #Winter #Skincare #Beauty

(the tips in this post taken from http://bit.ly/2FGpoET)

Winter Skincare Tips For Beautiful Skin

Every season takes its toll on your skin: summer causes the worst photodamage, spring and autumn bring out acne lesions because of the temperature changes, but winter can be especially bad for dry skin. Even if your skin isn't especially all that dry, it becomes drier in winter because of the low humidity in the air, the forced air heat that homes tend to have and the cold winds whipping at our skin. Skin on the face and body can become dry, flaky, dehydrated, itchy and it can get so bad that it can get cracked and become painful. Areas on the body that are especially inclined to cracking are the feet, hands and lips. Anyone would become susceptible to the problems of dry skin during this time. What do you do to keep skin looking its best during the winter? Here are some tips gathered from my 25 years of experience as a licensed Esthetician as well as an article I read by Julia Brucculieri in the Huffington Post ( http://bit.ly/2FGpoET).  

1. Keep Moisture in the Air: having a cold air humidifier in your room or a humidifier hooked up to your furnace can help to keep moisture in the air of your house. Skin is the only "barrier that keeps water inside the body, so when it is dry and cold, water evaporates off of the surface faster and easier.”", says Dr. Angela Lamb of director of the Westside Mount Sinai Dermatology Faculty Practice. You can also drink more water every day, say an extra glass or two. I tend to drink a lot of water every day. It does not have to be bottled water either. Try not to keep the heat so high too. The higher the heat, the drier the air. 

2. Change Your Skincare Regimen: In winter your skin is drier, more sensitive, so you want to use products that are more gentler on your skin. You will have to change your skincare regimen to fit the change in your skin. Cleansers may need to go from foaming, exfoliating cleansers to milky cleansers. Or you could use a more gentle foaming cleanser. When you need to exfoliate, and this is still an important part of the skincare regimen, you need to use an exfoliant that is suited for dry skins. Try AHAs (alpha hydroxy acids) instead of physical exfoliants (scrubs). That is if you can use them. Make sure your serums and moisturizers are suited for dry skin. You will need a serum with hyaluronic acid in it. Hyaluronic acid is a humectant (a humectant is an ingredient that attracts water to the skin, honey is an example of another one), that holds 1,000 times its own weight in water. There are so many products that have this ingredient. You also want a moisturizer with ceramides and peptides. Ceramides hold moisture in the skin, such as Cetaphil does. Glycerin is another great ingredient, as it is a great moisturizer. Panthenol is good as it is soothing to the skin.

For the body, Dove makes a good body wash that is gentle on the skin and does not dry it out. For moisturizing dry skin, a product with shea butter is good. Queen Helene makes an amazing Shea Butter Cream that is super moisturizing and is not expensive. There is also one is Cocoa Butter too, which is very good, Any product that has a 'butter' or an 'oil' will be good because those ingredients hold moisture in the skin. If you develop cracks in your skin because of dryness then there are two options: Aquaphor, which helps to heal the skin because of panthenol or a product with urea. Urea is a great exfoliant and also helps to get rid of calluses on the feet, which also tend to build up in the winter. 

Make sure to take care of your lips too. Wear a lip balm during the day and at night to keep lips from getting chapped. The wave of matte lipsticks has created no shortage of chapped lips these days. EOS makes a nice wax free lip balm. Nivea also makes a nice moisturizing one and it has sunscreen. After you remove your matte lipstick, you can use Aquaphor to help heal and soothe your lips.  

3. Avoid Very Hot Showers and Baths: Although you may be so cold and it is tempting to take a very hot shower or bath, the hot water actually dries out your skin. The hot water literally creates cracks in the surface of the skin. This can create itchy skin, called "winter's itch". It's better to take a shower or bath with a lower temperature water, which will help to keep skin in better shape. Also, keep the door closed and moisturize right afterwards. Products that work well are the new products from Nivea and Jergens that you can use either right in the shower or after the shower on wet skin to hold the water in the skin. Or use a dry oil on wet skin, which can also hold the water in the skin too. 

4. Moisturize Your Skin, And Moisturize Often: While this seems like a simple thing to do, often it is the most neglected one. Ideally, moisturizing your body skin daily is the best thing to do. We moisturize our faces daily, right? So why not our bodies? Skin gets incredibly dry in the winter and needs a daily dose of moisture. I have incredibly dry skin that seems to be getting drier as I get older. I hate that it itches and when I run my finger over my skin I see white. But I need to moisturize my skin more and more. I mentioned ingredients that were good for the body skin above: shea butter and cocoa butter. Coconut oil and Argan oil are also two great ingredients that are wonderful moisturizers for dry skin. Argan oil is one of the best and works on dry hair and dry facial skin too. Make sure that if you are going to use something very thick, like an ointment, it is best suited to the feet and hands. Then you would want to cover the ointment in socks or gloves to keep it from getting everywhere and to have it soak into the skin.

5. Do Not Go Into The Cold With Damp Skin: This seems like common sense. Skin will chap very easily if you go out into the cold if you have just taken a shower, bath or just washed your hands. It is just like when your lips are dry and you lick them, making them chapped. In the winter it is best to wait until skin is dry and re-hydrated so that skin does not chap. 

6. Cold, Dry Air Will Dry Out Your Skin: During the winter, the cold wind will chap your skin. Have you noticed how the cold, windy air just chaps your lips and skin almost instantly? Skin doesn't even need to be damp for this to happen. This is a problem of just winter. Having a wind chill makes it even worse. The colder the air the drier it is and less moisture there is in the air. That means that it is going to kind of suck the moisture out of your skin even faster, the longer you are exposed to the cold, dry air. Make sure to bundle up when you are outside and do not expose the surface of your skin as much as possible. Make sure your face is moisturized so that the "natural moisture barrier" of the skin does not lose moisture and also make sure that you are wearing lip balm, this way skin stays moisturized and does not dry out as much.  

7. Exfoliate Less Often: I mentioned this earlier in the "Change Your Skincare Regimen" section. It is important that when skin is dry and especially if it is sensitive, do not exfoliate as much as you would in summer, spring or fall. Dry skin can be exfoliated, but less often and with different products. Maybe only do it once a week instead of twice or three times a week. AHAs work well, as they can be tolerated by those with dry skin but not by those with sensitive skin. A good one is glycolic acid. This one is tolerated by most people. Another one would be salicylic acid if you tend to breakout some. Even if you have dry skin you can still break out in acne lesions. Salicylic acid will kill acne bacteria and exfoliate at the same time. If you do want to use a scrub, and make sure it is a gentle scrub. I would not use one with natural ground up walnut shells or anything with natural ground up shells, as these are not smooth all around and could cause very tiny micro-scratches in the skin. Or you could use enzymes, such as papaya or pineapple enzymes. Those exfoliate very well and are okay for dry skin but not for sensitive skin. Exfoliation is important as it helps get rid of the dry, dead skin cells from the pores (hair follicles) on the skin. A bulid up of these can cause milia, whiteheads, blackheads and pimples. Yes, even on dry skin. Hormones still come into play and act up, causing acne lesions, even during the winter. 

8. Wear SPF30 Every Day: Yes. You still need to wear at least a SPF30 EVERY day. Even on the days when there isn't any sun. The sun is still there, the UVA/UVB rays still get through the clouds, you just don't see them. Ideally, a mineral sunscreen is best, such as one made with titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. Chemical ones are okay too. There are good ones from Aveeno and La Roche-Posay. My favorite sunscreen is from CeraVe. It is a SPF30 with InvisibleZinc Technology and is a mineral sunscreen. The best anti-aging tool in your skincare arsenal is a sunscreen. And it should be worn every day under your makeup or even without makeup. And it should be a Broad Spectrum UVA/UVB SPF30 or higher. 

I hope this helps you have more beautiful skin this winter. Skincare is extremely important and should be one of your higher priorities for the winter to keep yourself from getting your skin in bad shape. You don't want cracks in your feet, extremely chapped lips, or very dry itchy skin, now do you?

Until Next Time~

Marie Papachatzis

I Am THE Makeup Junkie