Dry skin is something that nobody really wants. It peels and is just not attractive. On top of that, having dry skin can lead to permanent skin problems, such as wrinkles. And trust me, you don’t want wrinkles until you are well into your golden years. But if you have dry skin and don’t do anything about it, you can see wrinkles as soon as your twenties. So, you are probably wondering if all of the commercials about skin moisturizers are actually legit. Well, the concern about dry skin is definitely legit, the products themselves might be another story. But that is an article for another time.
This article is going to focus on five different ways that you can keep your skin moisturized to prevent dry skin from causing unattractive permanent skin problems to develop while you are still young.
Before I get into that, however, I think it is important to outline what causes your skin to dry up in the first place. The causes are important for determining what moisturizing method would be best for your skin’s situation. The most common causes for dry skin are the following:
The weather – If you live in regions of the world that have hot summers and cold winters, your dry skin could be caused by the sudden shift in temperature. I know where I live, in New York, it can go from feeling like a summer day one day to a cold winter day the next way. These kinds of weather changes are one of the leading causes of dry skin. Also, New York tends to have very dry temperatures, which can also lead to dry skin as the moisture in your skin evaporates in such conditions.
Aging – This is another leading cause of dry skin and is one that is probably the most inevitable. As your skin ages, its ability to take in and keep in moisture degrades, leaving you more vulnerable to having dry skin.
The sun – The ultraviolent radiation from the sun does tremendous damage to your skin and can cause your skin to dry up. Perfectly healthy skin cells can be severely damage or even outright killed by these harmful rays.
Disease – If you start developing nasty skin diseases such as psoriasis, they can dry out your skin.
Over-washing – If you are a germophobe who constantly washes their hands and face, you may be doing more harm than good to your skin. Too much washing can actually dry out your skin, as crazy as that sounds. If you work somewhere where it is required to constantly wash yourself, just know that it could be why you have dry skin.
Skin products – Products that are supposed to help your skin stay youthful and radiant may actually be damaging your skin. Also products that are applied to treat aforementioned skin diseases can dry out your skin and cause your healthy moisturized skin to be dried out and peeled off.
Now that I know the causes, how do I prevent my skin from drying out?
There is no one way that will work for everyone, but below I will list five ways that everyone can try to keep their skin moisturized. As you know, the crippling effects of having dry skin can have a profound effect on one’s confidence and mental well-being, so it is important to nip this problem in the bud sooner rather than later.
Don’t let it become a problem. Follow these steps:
#1: Don’t Exfoliate Too Much.
Exfoliating your skin is obviously good for your skin, but do it in moderation. As I stated earlier in the causes of dry skin, too much washing can dry out your skin and the same goes for exfoliating and scrubbing your body. Make sure you know what exfoliating cream you are using and ensure that the ingredients in said product won’t damage your skin. Be gentle when exfoliating to prevent damaging your skin. The two things to take away from this are, if you exfoliate, don’t do it too often and be gentle when doing it.
#2: Don’t Spend Too Much Time in the Water.
Staying in water when you are bathing or otherwise can cause your skin to dry up. Especially if the water is too hot or too cold. Make sure that when you do bathe, you use water at room temperature and don’t stay in too long. Letting your body just soak for an hour as you are taking a bubble bath is not recommended if you want to stave off dry skin. In addition to that, don’t take any more than 2 baths per day. Same goes for washing your face.
The first two steps stress moderation and moderation seems to be a central theme in a lot of healthy practices. On to the next one!
#3: Treat Your Skin with Essential Oils.
Oils taken from various parts of plants have been shown to be very beneficial when applied to the skin. These benefits include speeding up the healing process of wounds and also greatly assist in keeping your skin moisturized. In addition to that, these oils also assist in keeping a healthy balance of healthy and harmful bacteria in your skin microbiota. Examples of essential oils that can be used to treat the skin are: lavender oil, basil oil, tea tree oil, geranium oil, and ylang ylang oil.
#4: Maintain a Healthy Diet and Sleeping Pattern.
Sleeping is so important and I honestly cannot stress this enough. Getting a healthy eight hours of sleep each night does so much good for the body and one of those benefits is keeping your body from reacting to the stress caused by not getting enough sleep. Stress causes the pores in your skin to expand and in turn, your skin dries out. Also, a healthy diet full of organic foods high in nutrition can do wonders for your skin. You also want foods rich with antioxidants as those can greatly help your skin stay moisturized.
#5: Take a Look at How You are Treating Your Skin Right Now.
If you have not been treating your skin prior to reading this article, that could be a good or a bad thing. Good in the sense that you don’t have any harmful skincare habits to kick, but bad in the sense that you have not been doing anything to keep your skin clean. But that is beside the point. If you do have a skincare regimen that you follow, make sure to take a look at the products you are applying to your skin.
As I stressed earlier, some products that claim to be beneficial for the skin actually contain harmful products that dry out otherwise healthy normal skin. Some ingredients to look out for are alcohol, colorants, and fragrance. Those three ingredients are especially harmful to the cells that make up your skin. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but you must part with any skincare products that have those ingredients if you are looking to keep your skin moisturized.
Conclusion
This article may make it sound easy to fight off dry skin, but believe me it is much harder than it looks. It causes a lot of perseverance and adherence to these five steps. In the war against dry skin, good information is like having a nuclear bomb and by just reading this article, you now possess that nuclear bomb.
By the way, you sooner you tackle this issue, the less likely it is to actually become an issue until you are all well and old and it is normal to have wrinkly skin. But guess what, you will probably be one of the last ones of your group of friends and family to get wrinkles and if you work on preventing wrinkly skin NOW. Good luck!
