Dry Facial Skin:5 Solutions

Winter is beautiful, cold, harsh, and wreaks havoc on your delicate skin! The cool, dry climate and even more detrimental, your arid indoor environment thanks to air blasting out of your furnace all winter, are creating your dry facial skin. What can you do about it? Here are five solutions to help you keep your skin soft, supple, and young-looking for the rest of the winter.

1. Drink more water, and herbal tea. Hydrate your skin from the inside out. I'm sure you've heard the standard - drink six to eight glasses of water a day. Do it. It really helps your skin. If your not a big water drinker, sip on herbal tea all day for plenty of cleansing, hydrating fluids without the sugar of juices. If you drink a lot of coffee (guilty!) then drink an extra glass of water. 
2. Grab the oil. This winter I've been using tamanu oil and rosehip oil as a facial moisturizer at night. Tamanu oil is super rich and perfect for those of us that are prone to a dry, flaky, dull winter complexion. Rosehip oil is a bit lighter if you have combination or oily skin. Massage a tiny bit in at night in place of a cream. 
3. Use a humidifier. I've never been a fan of this option, honestly it seems like a lot of work and is not an environmentally-friendly option, but it can help to counterbalance the drying effect of your heat source. Rule of thumb, for those really cold weeks when the furnace is working hard, put your humidifier on at night. I use one that creates a warm vapor, great for fighting seasonal coughs! Try to be more vigilant about turning off the lights and unplugging unused appliances to offset your increase in energy use. We want to keep the earth beautiful as well as our skin, after all. 
4. Use a creamy cleanser. Is your facial cleanser made for dry skin? To help relieve dry facial skin, you need a gentle cleanser that won't strip away extra oils when you wash. Go for a creamy cleanser or make your own (one of my favorite homemade facial cleansing recipes is to combine white tea and plain yogurt). 
5. Fatten your face. If you want your skin to glow, you can't shy away from healthy fatty acids. I'm not advocating a hamburger and shake as a healthy lunch. I am advocating snacking on nuts and seeds, baking with coconut oil, making homemade salad dressings with flax seed oil and lemon juice. Make sure you are getting plenty of healthy fats in your diet. Putting lipids on your skin will help to protect against moisture loss, but you also need to feed your skin from the inside. 

If you are looking for a great homemade hydrating mask for dry facial skin, check out the Ultra Moisturizing Face Mask!