Your Guide To Dry Skin

If you have dry skin, you know that finding the perfect skincare ritual can mean the difference between a flaky, eternally tight-feeling visage and a comfortable, glowing complexion.Though it can be uncomfortable, dry skin is not at all uncommon. Dry skin means that your face can't protect itself as well as it should from the environment. When the skin is dry, it develops tiny cracks in the outer layer, interfering with its ability to maintain hydration properly. Fortunately, there are ways to care for dry skin with a daily ritual to ensure a hydrated, glowing complexion.

Here is the definitive guide for preventing, soothing, and dealing with dry skin.

The Basics :

Start the day off right. Your morning prep is important to get your skin ready for the day with gentle, fragrance-free products that keep moisture in, and harmful UV rays + free radicals out.
Take a shower or bathe in warm water for no longer than 10 minutes. While the heat from a shower may feel phenomenal on a chilly day, hot water adds to surface dehydration.
Apply your skincare products immediately after the shower or bath to help lock in moisture.
Prep your home. The drier the air, the drier the skin. To maximize the amount of water in the air, place a humidifier in the room where you spend the most time, which, in many cases, is the bedroom. A cool air humidifier increases the moisture level in the air.
Change up your diet. With a direct connection between the gut and skin health, increasing your daily intake of fats may help with dry skin. Eating a diet rich in walnuts, olive oil, and avocados + drinking tons of water can help. Take it easy with alcohol, caffeine, and coffee, as they are diuretics that will cause dehydration.
Get plenty of vitamin C to increase collagen production and speed up the moisture barrier repair process.
Rest up and try to reduce your stress levels. Get up to 8-9 hours of quality shut-eye.

Ingredients to include in your routine :

- HYALURONIC ACID : Plays an important role in hydrating your skin and maintaining its elasticity. Its water-binding properties help replenish your skin and also prevents early signs of aging.

- GLYCERIN : It has hydrating properties that can relieve your skin from feeling dry and itchy, because of it being a humectant. Glycerin works by attracting moisture from the environment onto the surface of your skin.

- JOJOBA : A great emollient, softening and smoothing your complexion. When combined with occlusive ingredients it also helps protect the skin barrier, reducing trans-epidermal water loss and sealing in moisture. At the same time, because it does act so similarly to our skin's oil, it helps balance out those levels, useful for anyone dealing with either too much or too little natural oil.

- CERAMIDES : These are skin replenishing ingredients, like the cement that supports the bricks of a building. They make up and repair your skin’s barrier, which prevents water loss and retains moisture.

- PANTHENOL : is an ingredient that penetrates through the skin and imparts moisture to the cells. It also prevents trans-epidermal water loss. This means that it improves skin barrier functions by stimulating cells that boost the same.

The Ritual :

It’s important to note that everyone’s skin is different, so take these guidelines with a grain of salt. With that said, these are our glow ritual essentials.

CLEANSE : Be sure to swap any cleansers with drying ingredients, like fragrances or sulfates, in favor of a balancing cleanser that won’t strip your skin of its natural oils, which are needed to protect overall moisture. Preparing your skin to face the day when it has a tendency to be dry should involve using a gentle cleanser such as Moon Juice's Milk Cleanser.

TONE : After careful cleansing, we recommend applying a toner to refresh, balance and prepare the skin for subsequent hydration. Hydrating, alcohol-free toners like Josh Rosebrook's Hydrating Accelerator are great to build your layers of hydration while supporting the reduction of transepidermal water loss.

MASK : Masking helps hydrate the skin, smooth out uneven texture, brighten, minimize the look of fine lines and wrinkles, refine big pores, absorb excess oil, and helps with breakouts. Like a glass of water for your skin, the Josh Rosebrook Advanced Hydration Mask is packed with good-for-you ingredients, such as the Resurrection Plant, a desert extremophile that can bring itself back to life from complete dehydration, it does the same for your skin. Also, Blue Tansy oil, an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, keeps your complexion calm, while its aroma soothes your senses.

SUPERCHARGE WITH SERUM : While most summertime products get swapped out come winter, serums are the one exception to that rule. As long as it’s alcohol-free, an antioxidant serum like Pai's Back To Life Hydration Serum is perfect for year-round usage. Some beneficial ingredients for tight, dehydrated skin are Jojoba, which smoothes and softens, and Hyaluronic Acid, which can hold between 10 and 50 times its weight in water.

MOISTURIZE : Perhaps one of the most important and commonly overlooked steps in the dry skin game is changing to a seriously hydrating moisturizer. Look for creams, rather than lotions, such as Naturopathica's Calendula Essential Hydrating Cream that is made with calendula—a centuries-old healing remedy to soothe dry or irritated skin.

SPF : Every skin type should be using SPF, and dry skin is no exception. To make sure you're getting proper coverage, look for an SPF that is 30 or higher. Help your skin lock in moisture with this moisturizer/sunscreen combo, Naturopathica Calendula Essential Hydrating SPF 30.

Boost Your Skin :

For those prone to dryness, or with conditions like psoriasis and eczema, monthly facials are a great way to up their hydration and protective barrier efforts. Also, oxygen treatments are especially effective for hydrating dry skin, as the oxygen increases circulation, improves skin texture, restores cell nourishment and stimulates collagen production. We love this add on to boost our glow.

The Oxygen Glow Boost : Heighten your glow with an infusion of pure oxygen and antioxidant filled serum to re-energize cells, plump skin and nourish with hydration. Soothes the skin and helps to keep moisture and softness post treatment. Book Your Oxygen Glow Boost

Nourish your skin from within :

Here are some tips you can take to help soothe and nourish your dry skin inside out.

Consuming foods that are high in vitamins A, C, D, and E, as well as foods that are good sources of zinc and selenium, may help prevent or improve dry skin. Omega-3, green tea antioxidants, and turmeric also have benefits for the skin. Eating foods that contain these nutrients may help the skin perform its protective functions, reducing water loss and increasing skin hydration.

Unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids in fatty fish such as salmon, as well as in nettle seeds, chia seeds and linseed oil can fill the skin’s lipid reserves from the inside and stabilize its natural protective barrier.

The bright color of foods such as apricots, sea buckthorn, carrots as well as yellow and red bell peppers indicates their high levels of beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A. As an antioxidant, beta-carotene is effective in the prevention of dry and aging skin.

Nuts and seeds in general are rich in vitamin E, which additionally supports the skin’s lipid layer and ensures better skin hydration.

Dry and cracked skin that feels tight or itchy can indicate a zinc deficiency. Rye and wheat sprouts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, hard cheeses, fish and meat, as well as oat flakes and lentils, can be great sources of zinc.

* A Tip From

Our Skin Healer :

Come from age or dehydration, you want to work on gently exfoliating when dealing with surface dryness. If caused by dehydration, adding electrolytes to your water, or a pinch of Celtic sea salt can help boost hydration through these minerals. Adding more fruits to your diet is also beneficial as you get more hydration from fruits than water. You may also be needing more layers within your ritual, such as a serum, oil, or moisturizer.

Go-to product : Anima Mundi Collagen Booster.

Helps boost the body’s natural production of collagen, as well as restore and maintain the skin’s youthful glow.

My favorite highlight ingredient within the formula is the Helichrysum. It’s a flower (great for brightening) that usually grows in the south of France; fun fact, once picked, it never loses its color.

Takeaway :

There’s no overnight fix for healthier, more hydrated skin. The two most fundamental steps of nourishing your skin are hydration and moisturization. To keep your skin healthy and young, hydrating it from the inside out is a must. Besides drinking enough water, following a proper skincare ritual, eating water-rich foods, and practicing healthy lifestyle habits are essential to enjoy moistured, healthy skin all year round.