HOW TO KEEP YOUR SKIN HYDRATED FOR DRY WEATHER
Winter is here!!!
In Nigeria where I am its harmattan season for us, otherwise known as the dry season. Along with dropping temperatures, there’s gonna be dust everywhere, plants will wither, and clothes will dry much faster. Your skin will dry out much faster too.
In this crackling dry weather it is very important that you should pay attention to hydration in your skincare routine. Hydration is a very key aspect of skincare and should be taken seriously at all times but now is a great time to amp up all hydration techniques.
I am going to be listing a few tricks that are sure to aid you in keeping your skin hydrated in the coming weeks (bonus tip: they also work all year round).
1. Using a soap free cleanser: I’m very pro soap free cleansing for skin but most especially during drier months. Traditional soaps such as bar soaps contain ingredients that can disrupt the skins acid mantle (a protective layer of natural oils/acids on the surface of the skin) by stripping the skin of those natural oils. This is what is popularly referred to when we say something is “stripping your skin". These soaps are way too harsh to be used on your face. Some facial cleansers that contain soap can still be found to be stripping on the skin.
Given that in these drier times our skin will be doing more to protect itself, we need to aid it in doing so and not make matters worse by further stripping it of its natural oils. A great way to do that would be to switch out your regular face cleanser for a soap free facial cleanser which is guaranteed to be much more gentle on your skin and would not strip your skin of it’s natural oils.
2. Using an oil cleanser as a single or double cleanse: as I type this I feel like I’m pulling out the big guns here and yes I am cause desperate times call for desperate measures. If you find yourself in a situation where the weather is so dry that even a cleanser with gentle surfactants can be a bit too much for your skin you have the option of sticking to just an oil cleanser.
The idea behind oil cleansing is that oil binds with oil as opposed to water which cannot bind with oil. So by using an oil cleanser, it would bind with all the oil based products on your skin and clean them out. Oil cleansing is sure to protect the skins natural barrier.
Oil cleansing can be done with either natural oils or formulated oil cleansers.
3. Using multiple hydrating products in your routine: this is a giveaway trick. Now is the time to gear most products in your routine towards hydration. Get that hydrating toner and serum and yes, the moisturiser with multiple hydrating components. Throw in a hydrating mask or two. We can’t be too hydrated in this weather now can we?
4. Layering your hydrating products: this is an easy trick to hydration that I absolutely love. You can just take one hydrating product and layer it multiple times in a single routine. Ideally you should be using your toner between every skincare step. Now just switch out your regular toner with a hydrating toner and there you have it.
You can also layer a single product, like a toner or a serum multiple times in the same step with 30 second intervals for absorption. This is sure to make a world of difference in your hydration game.
5. Slugging: this is basically sealing off your skincare routine with a heavy occlusive, particularly petroleum jelly.
Growing up in the middle belt of Nigeria, during the harmattan season, Vaseline (petroleum jelly) was your best friend. We all left our houses with melanin glistening in the sun because it was believed that petroleum jelly could protect your skin from the dryness the weather brought. We were right all along. The mistake we made then was not properly moisturising before using the petroleum jelly, so at the end of the day we just sealed in the dryness. Lol.
Petroleum jelly is not a moisturiser in itself, it is however great for sealing in moisture and thus is tremendous for dry, chapped, broken and recovering skin.
Using petroleum jelly as a final step after your moisturiser is a great way to keep your skin hydrated.
This tip can be used for your entire body too.
6. Not washing your face with hot water: I know it is super cold and there may be the temptation to take really hot baths and use very hot water on your skin. Please resist the temptation at all times. Hot water will only dry out your skin and possibly irritate it. The possibility of burns is also right there at the horizon. It would be much better to stick to lukewarm water at all given times.
There you have it. Few steps that are guaranteed to keep your skin looking plump and hydrated through out these dry times.
Have you tried any of these steps out? Which did you find most helpful?
