Your intact, healthy skin is your body’s primary defense against infection,” says Claude Burton MD, professor of dermatology at Duke University School of Medicine. If you let your skin get dried out and cracked, you could be giving all sorts of nasty bacteria a way in. That can lead to more serious problems.
Let’s start with some skin basics. Normal, healthy skin is coated in a thin layer of natural lipids, or fatty substances. They keep in moisture, leaving the skin soft and supple.
What causes dry skin? Usually, something in the environment — or something you’re doing to your skin — is stripping away these fatty oils, leaving your skin unprotected. Less often, the cause is internal; a health condition or genetic predisposition is making your skin dry out.
1. Dry air:
While cold, harsh weather does dry your skin, the biggest problem in the winter lies indoors — the dry heat churned out by your furnace. (During the summer, air conditioning can have a similar effect.) To counteract the dry heat, start with a moisturizer. Turning down the thermostat a bit in the winter can also help.
Other dry skin care tips include using a humidifier in your bedroom, and bundling up — with hats, scarves and gloves, when you’re outside.
2. Long, Hot Showers & Baths:
Prolonged exposure to water — especially hot water — can wash away the natural oils that protect your skin. If you get out of the bath or shower and your skin feels tight, it’s dried out.
Use lukewarm rather than hot. Afterward, pat your body dry with a towel — rather than vigorously rubbing it — and put on a moisturizer right away.
3. Soap:
Soap can quickly strip away your skin’s protective oils, and we tend to use way too much of it. Unless you’re a child or a ditch digger, the only parts of the body that need any soap or cleanser at all are the face, hands, feet, groin and underarms. The rest of the body can usually just be rinsed off with water.
While our doctors — and our mothers — always told us to wash our hands frequently, that can also lead to trouble. Ironically, while done in the quest to rid ourselves of germs, excessive hand washing can dry out the skin and cause it to crack and bleed, making infection much more likely.
Many of us choose unwisely when we’re in the soap aisle of the supermarket. We go for harsh soaps that generate lots of lather and leave us feeling squeaky clean.
Experts say that for many people with dry skin, the best choice is a mild, non-soap skin cleanser that is not loaded with harmful chemicals. Here is how to find products that are safe and effective for your skin.
4 Itchy clothing:
Dry skin is especially sensitive to contact irritants, so continually exposing your skin to uncomfortable clothing could make your skin drier and itchier.
Go with clothes that feel comfortable the first time you put them on. Make sure your clothing isn’t too tight either, since chafing can also cause and irritate dry skin.
It is wise to take care of skin and avoid the four reason that we just discussed. Moreover, you should use high quality skin care products that can replenish the lost nutrients and minerals of the skin.
