When winter hits many of us take our skin for granted, believing that our skin is moist enough to withstand the onslaught of cold, dry air in the coming season.
1. Exfoliate Your Skin. Before you take a shower you need to remove old dead skin from your body. This allows the fresh new skin beneath to breathe and absorb moisture. Get yourself a good natural bristled body brush and use large sweeping motions to massage your skin. You'll also be helping to stimulate blood flow and help reduce cellulite as an added bonus.
2. Use sun screen. Sun screen wasn't just invented for summer time use. We should be protecting our skin from harmful sun rays all year long. Dangerous UV rays are actually stronger in the winter and can be far more damaging to your skin if left exposed. There are cosmetic companies now including UV ray protection in their foundations such as Cover Girl TruBlend Powder Foundation Sunscreen. It works like a sunscreen but its still make-up.
3. Apply moisturizer. The cold outdoors is not the only thing that dries out your skin. The air indoors is much drier due to heaters being run and lack of fresh outside air being circulated inside. The only way to combat that is to apply moisturizer. It's best to apply an all-over body moisturizer at least twice a day; once in the morning and once before bed. A real good all-over moisturizer is Eucerin or Lubriderm. Both of these moisturizers are fairly cheap in price and can be found in any drugstore, Wal-Mart or Target stores. Eucerin also has a moisturizer that has added SPF sun blocking agents. If you've got money to spend then give the Neutrogena SPF 15 moisturizer a try as it does a great job at soaking right in to your skin without the added oils.
4. Use Carmex or other Lip Balm. It gets very easy to neglect our lips when we spend all day yacking or stuffing our faces but protecting our lips is very important. To keep your lips from getting chapped the first
thing you should do is stop licking them. When you repeatedly lick your lips you are actually removing moisture and causing them to get even more chapped. To eliminate the huge red ring around your mouth rub a little Vaseline on the area before going to sleep.
5. Use sleeping time to replenish the moisture in your hands and feet by applying moisture and sleeping with socks and gloves on. You can wear socks on your hands as well as your feet but be sure they are 100% cotton. I prefer Hanes cotton socks but brand doesn't really matter. Curel makes a moisturizer that works well on both hands and feet but let me tell you about a secret product I recently found at Target.
Burts Bees. It's absolutely delicious smelling and wonderfully nourishing. My skin loves this stuff and I have very dry skin. Burts Bees Mama Bee vitamin E body oil is an all over moisturizer made of almond, lemon oils and vitamin E and the best time to use it is right out of the shower. I love that it doesn't leave my skin feeling oily or slick and best of all it only cost me $8 for a 4 ounce bottle.
If you take care of your hands, feet, lips and face you should fare pretty well in the coming winter months. But no matter what products or techniques you use remember that one of the best ways to hydrate your skin is to hydrate your body. Be sure to drink lots of water this winter.
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