Do you experience dry, scaly skin that often becomes tight, flaky and itchy? Does it feel like no matter how much moisturizer you slather onto your face, you never seem to get relief? While it’s a common experience, this doesn’t make dry skin on the face any less uncomfortable or annoying. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to address the issue, and we’ve come up with a skin care routine for dry skin that will help clear away those flaky bits and replenish moisture so you can restore your radiant complexion and feel confident again.
5 Dry Skin Symptoms | How To Get Rid Of Dry Skin | 5-Step Routine
5 Dry Skin Symptoms You May Notice
Take a glance at the following symptoms to identify whether you have dry skin:
- The skin on your face and body feels very tight after showering, swimming or cleansing
- Generally, your skin has a rough texture
- The skin around your lips or on your face is flaking
- Fine lines or deep cracks are developing
- You experience dryness that’s painful, itchy or scaly
Still unsure if you have dry skin? Watch this In The Mix video as Eminence Organics Lead Skin Care Trainer Natalie Pergar demonstrates three easy steps for categorizing your skin type.
How To Get Rid Of Dry Skin
Dry skin can be exacerbated by external factors like seasonal changes, environmental stress and even hormones. Read our complete guide to dry skin to identify whether you are dealing with it or if something else is at play – like dehydration or an adverse reaction to a food or beauty product. If dryness is indeed the culprit, here are some easy ways to keep dry skin soft and supple:
1. Moisturize
The first line of defense for dry skin is usually a moisturizer. Oil-based ointments, creams and lotions that are rich in essential fatty acids (EFAs) can compensate for dry skin’s lack of oil and lipids. They lubricate the skin’s surface as well as fortify the skin’s moisture barrier to replenish and seal in much-needed moisture. “When choosing moisturizer for dry skin, aim for a heavier formula and look for ingredients like hyaluronic acid … ” explains Dr. Hooman Khorasani, Dermatologic and Cosmetic Surgeon. “Other ingredients to look for include shea butter and lactic acid, which provide hydration and exfoliation.”
Pro Tip: Apply moisturizer while your skin is still slightly damp, either post-cleanse or after a spritz of a revitalizing or refreshing mist to lock in extra hydration.
2. Shower Or Bathe With Lukewarm Water
Extreme temperatures can aggravate an already dry complexion by stripping the skin of essential oils. Dr. Joshua Zeichner tells SELF: “The water in your shower should be the temperature of what you would imagine a heated pool to be – approximately 84 degrees F.” If hot showers are your love language, limit them to 10 minutes max to mitigate the damage.
3. Use Gentle Ingredients
Like extreme temperatures, harsh cosmetic ingredients can impact the skin’s moisture barrier, causing dryness and irritation. To protect your skin, avoid skin care products that include chemical ingredients like parabens, petrolatum, mineral oils, propylene glycol or sodium lauryl sulfate. All Eminence Organics products are free of these ingredients, so making the switch could make all the difference.
4. Protect Your Skin In Winter
Dry winter air also adds to skin dryness. There is less moisture around during winter months, which causes any in your skin to evaporate more quickly. Many of us are also guilty of cranking up the thermostat, which further strips moisture from the air and skin. To compensate, Harvard Health recommends using a humidifier and setting it to around 60%, which is sufficient to replenish any moisture lost in your skin’s top layer.
5. Adjust Your Diet
Attack the issue from the inside out. You can enhance your skin’s ability to retain moisture by adding healthy fats to your diet. Omega-3 and omega-6 oils support skin health by fighting inflammation and bolstering the skin’s moisture barrier. Foods rich in healthy fats include salmon, flaxseeds, walnuts, avocado and sunflower seeds.
Now that you know some tactics for treating your dry skin and helping prevent it, you can also consider a number of gentle products that can be useful for relieving dry skin on the face. One of the best ways to tackle it is by tailoring your skin care routine to include moisture-rich products that replenish and repair. We recommend the following routine to heal and soothe dry skin so that you can feel a little more balanced.
A 5-Step Routine To Help You Deal With Dry Skin On The face
If flaky skin is cramping your style, smooth things over day to night with these Eminence Organics solutions.
1. Cleanse
Lathering up with harsh soaps or strong fragrances can further irritate dry skin. There’s also a chance that the foaming cleanser you’re using is stripping your skin of its natural oils. Instead, use a rich balm or oil, or, if you need to see bubbles to feel clean, go for a gentle option like the Kombucha Microbiome Foaming Cleanser. As a first cleansing step, purify your dry skin with a gentle, oil-based cleanser. We recommend the Stone Crop Cleansing Oil which replenishes the complexion with moisturizing ingredients like sunflower oil and jojoba oil. Using this as the first step of a double cleanse is especially effective on days when you wear makeup.
In addition to adding moisture, you might also want to exfoliate and remove surface debris. The Monoi Age Corrective Exfoliating Cleanser is infused with exotic monoi and made with Eminence Organics’ unique Natural Retinol Alternative to help you achieve a smoother, more youthful-looking glow.
2. Exfoliate (Weekly To Start)
Our Product Support Team encourages exfoliating dry skin weekly to “take care of any flakiness.” For this type of complexion, a gentle exfoliant like Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant is your best bet. Containing lactic acid, rice and chickpea flours, this physical and chemical exfoliant combo clears dead skin cells and smooths rough, dry skin. The presence of salicylic acid gently exfoliates and removes impurities to brighten things up and shrink the appearance of pores. If you’re seeing results and no irritation, bump it up to twice a week.
Watch Natalie walk you through two gentle but effective ways to exfoliate dry skin, eliminate flakes and reveal a glowy complexion:
3. Tone
A toner is helpful to balance your skin’s moisture and pH levels after cleansing, and to remove any impurities that the cleansers may have missed. Think of toner as the “conditioner” to your cleanser. A product like our Stone Crop Hydrating Mist includes conditioning ingredients like stone crop, lavender and jasmine to restore moisture and nourish dry skin. Once you’ve cleansed your skin, apply one to two sprays onto the face and neck, or you can apply it with a cotton pad, avoiding the eye area, and leave it on.
4. Treat
When it comes to choosing an oil, concentrate or serum for dry skin, we recommend reaching for a product that is rich in fatty acids. Our suggestion is Facial Recovery Oil, which includes nourishing oils that are healing for dry skin. This luxurious face oil is formulated with precious herbs and oils, including clary sage oil and sage leaf extract, to soothe and renew the skin. It’s also a best seller and for good reason. It’s earned the nickname “liquid gold” by our customers – and even Cameron Diaz is a fan, saying: “A drop of Facial Recovery Oil goes a long way to relieve any dryness from the sun and water. A drop on each cheek after your shower will do wonders.”
5. Moisturize
When you shower or wash your face, make it a habit to apply a generous layer of moisturizer and spend a good amount of time massaging it into the face. Choose an oil-rich cream that replenishes moisture and repairs your skin’s lipid barrier. Our Coconut Age Corrective Moisturizer includes deeply moisturizing coconut oil and shea butter. Shea butter, in particular, is an excellent emollient for the skin, as it’s high in triglycerides and fatty acids which restore and retain moisture.
If you’re looking to target the neck and face overnight, use the Monoi Age Corrective Night Cream for Face and Neck as it reduces the look of fine lines and wrinkles so you’ll wake up with a more rejuvenated appearance.
And don’t forget the rest of your body. Dry skin is a real thing year-round. Whether the culprit is salt water, dry air, diet or environmental stressors, your arms and legs can feel the flakes and itch too. A nighttime skin care routine is one of the most effective ways that you can revitalize and hydrate your skin, especially mature skin. Out of the shower, we recommend using the Monoi Age Corrective Night Body Cream. It contains an exclusive Argan Stem Cell Complex to encourage softer, smoother-looking skin to appear.
Are you ready to update your dry skin care routine? Find these products and more at an Eminence Organics Spa Partner near you.
This article was originally written in November 2020.