Caring your skin in winter

We are in winter and low temperatures, wind, rain and snow come with it. All these factors can affect our skin, but also what we do to keep comfortable and warm as heating, can damage our skin. We should give special care to our skin during these harsh months. 

If you want to know how cold affect our skin and what can we do to avoid this damage, continue reading.

How cold weather affects our skin

Any change in environmental temperature affects our skin. Body temperature is controlled by a process called Homeostasis. There are different processes involved and I am not going through that in detail. In summary, when the temperature decreases our capillary blood vessels suffer a constriction, skin capillaries become narrower allowing less blood flow through the skin. While doing that, the body can maintain the temperature. Contrarily, when it is too hot, blood vessels leading to the skin capillaries become wider, they dilate, allowing more blood to flow through the skin and more heat to be lost to the environment.

While too hot weather is very uncomfortable for us, our skin suffers more in a too cold environment. The vasoconstriction produced in too cold environments produces redness, dryness and other skin problems, which are more important in the more exposed areas, such as face and neck. Also, a consequence of the vasoconstriction is that the level of oxygen in the skin cells decreases and the skin becomes dull. The cell renewal process is slowed down and that produce a tightening feeling and itchiness on the skin.

We also need to think about the effect of the heating and continuous temperature changes (while going from outdoors to indoors and vice versa). The high humidity levels outdoor and excessive dryness in closed spaces affects the skin making it to be dry and dehydrated, as it produces less sebum.

It is important to give special care to our skin durin g the winter months.

What can we do for healthy skin

We should clean our skin, but in winter we should use a soft cleanser, without detergents if possible, and rinse it with lukewarm water. You shouldn’t use very hot water as that can producer more dryness. You should dry it with a soft cloth tapping on the face.  After cleansing the face it is important to use a moisturiser, just after drying, to keep hydration.

It is very important to keep the skin hydrated as much as we can. We can help by using face oil or emollient products a few times a day. This type of products prevents the loss of water. It can be a plus if these products contain vitamin C and collagen.

Whenever possible, protect your skin against low temperature and wind by the use of gloves, scarfs and covering your face and neck as much as you can.

It is important to protect the hands, as they are really exposed. It can be uncomfortable to use gloves in certain situations, but if you don’t protect your hands properly, you can have even cracks on your hands. It is a good idea to hydrate continuously the hands with a cream containing glycerin and urea.

Lips also need hydration. They become wet frequently and they can be easily damaged. Apply a protector while going out and a balm with nutrients at home. You can also use a lip sleep balm to regenerate them during the night.

Don’t forget sun protection. It is easy to think that because it is cold and cloudy we will not suffer the sun effects. But that is not true, UV radiation reaches us even in the cloudy, rainy and snowy days. Apply a sun protector as usual.

Finally, you can protect your skin from inside drinking plenty of water and vitamin C. It is easy to forget to drink in winter as the thirst feeling is reduced, but we should force ourselves to drink. Vitamin C can be found in citric fruits like oranges, lemons, clementines,…. and also in kiwis, strawberries, etc.

You can download the cheat sheet to keep in had how your skin suffers in winter and what to do to keep a healthy skin.

It is important to have healthy skin even if it is covered all day as in winter. Finally, we want healthy skin for us, not for showing it. In this time of the year, it is even more important to get good care to your skin. There are different products in the market which will help you during winter. Choose the right for you, depending on your skin type and lifestyle.