Even if you have won the genetic lottery, the health of your skin needs to be maintained with special treatments. If this is not the case for you, careful care is particularly important. Especially at such a harsh time – the off-season, when the difference between outdoor and indoor temperatures can be over 20 degrees Celsius. We tell you what your skin needs – today and always.
What your skin suffers from in the cold
Both the biting November wind and the dry indoor air make your skin particularly vulnerable. It feels like it’s suffering from dryness, when in fact the problem is dehydration. These terms are often used interchangeably, although there is a big difference between them. Dry skin is a lack of natural oils, while dehydration is a lack of moisture.
Our skin has a lipid barrier that traps pollutants and slows down the evaporation of water. If the lipid barrier is damaged, which can happen due to very dry air, moisture evaporates from the skin more quickly and you feel tightness. Tinting products “roll off” during the course of the day, the face takes on a dull color and the skin can become flaky. To get this problem under control, you need to moisturize the skin and ensure that it is stored in the lipid barrier. This is the most important thing you should pay attention to during the cold season, without sacrificing other basic skin care measures.
How to care for your skin: three basic steps
1. gentle cleansing
This washes away sweat, dust, make-up residue and excess oil from the skin. Cleansing should be thorough but gentle. You should not wash your face “until it squeaks”: this damages the skin’s protective barrier and causes it to lose moisture more quickly.
For cleansing, it is better to choose cosmetics with a mild, non-aggressive composition, which are usually referred to by the terms “gentle”, “moisturizing”, “nourishing”. The type of product – gel, foam or milk – does not matter and depends on your preferences.
If you use decorative cosmetics, you should first dissolve them with a make-up remover: micellar water, hydrophilic oil, balm or milk. Products with oils in their composition dissolve well and do not dry out the skin. Wash off the remnants of cosmetics and make-up remover using a cleansing foam or gel. Do not use hot water to cleanse your face, especially in the off-season: it rinses the grease well from the skin and makes cleansing more aggressive.
Lifehack
If you want to take your skin care to a higher level during the cold season, you should look into facial cleansing brushes that cleanse the skin thoroughly but not aggressively and remove keratinized cells.
2. gentle exfoliation
This step is necessary to remove dead skin cells from the skin’s surface. If exfoliation is skipped, all subsequent skin care treatments are useless: the nutrients of the cosmetics are simply absorbed into the keratinized layer.
There are two main methods of exfoliation:
mechanical – by means of agents with abrasive elements (e.g. washing cream with peach pits),
chemical – cosmetics with special substances (e.g. peeling with fruit acids).
How often you need to exfoliate in the cold depends on your skin type. For oily or combination skin, you can use a mild scrub with a low or medium concentration of acids almost daily. For dry skin, such products should not be used more than twice a week. In the cold season, it is better not to get carried away with products containing abrasive particles. It is easy to overdo it and destroy the skin’s lipid barrier.
