One Quick Fix for Dry Winter Skin

Have you noticed that your skin tends to change with the seasons?

Typically colder weather means your skin will feel dryer and may start to flake and feel irritated. Cold air holds less moisture, so there is less for your skin to pull from in the environment to keep it hydrated.

You may feel the urge to use heavier face creams or oils to attempt to add more moisture, but there may be a barrier preventing these things from actually hydrating your skin; layers of dead skin.

Let's take a look at the process your skin goes through to purge your dead skin cells and what you can do to help it along during these cold, dry months.

Desquamation

Our skin is a complex organism with 3 layers; the epidermis, the dermis, and the hypodermis. We tend to focus on the epidermis, which is the outer layer of skin that we can see and readily assess what we think it needs.

The epidermis is further divided into 5 layers that make up the process of creating new skin cells. New skin cells are made in the bottom layer and change shape and composition as they move up the layers. Once they reach the top of the top layer, they dry out and are considered dead.

Our skin can have 10-30 layers of dead skin cells on the surface of our skin. Some of these dead skin cells still serve a purpose, like keeping moisture in and foreign offenders out. But, eventually, your skin will purge dead skin cells to make room for the new.

This process is called desquamation. The dead skin cells typically sit on the external layer for about 14 days while enzymes break them down and they slough off. Our skin likes to have 10%-20% water content, but when it falls below this, the skin cells slough off in sheets instead of individually. This is what causes that dry, scaly flakiness.

How we can help our skin help itself

Although our body has its own exfoliation mechanism, via desquamation, we can help it along!

When your environment's moisture content is low, your skin's water content may also decline, slowing down your natural rate of desquamation. Physical exfoliation can speed up the process of sloughing off those dead skin cells that really want to be purged but haven't quite let go yet. 

The Quartz Solid Exfoliatoris made just for this purpose.

We use a super fine ground quartz powder that is mild enough to be used on delicate facial skin. Many physical exfoliants are too rough for facial skin and can cause microabrasions. Facial skin does not need a lot of scrubbing power to slough off dead skin cells, so we made the perfect balance.

The quartz is suspended in a creamy lather that allows you to gently move the exfoliator around your face with a lacey slip to protect your skin.

How to use

Physical exfoliation does not need to be performed daily. Once or twice a week is sufficient for keeping your skin fresh and primed for taking in moisture and hydration.

The best way to use the Quartz Exfoliator is gently. You may have the notion that you need to scrub with a lot of pressure to polish your skin, but really, not much pressure is needed.

In the picture above, you can see I am holding the exfoliator with just two fingers. I am only pressing as hard as necessary to physically move the bar along my face. I wet the bar and gently rub it all over my face, rewetting the bar as necessary to ensure a creamy slip. Then, I set the bar down and lightly massage in the resulting lather with my fingers before I rinse off to reveal my new, bright skin!

The Quartz Exfoliatoris a set of 3 small bars. These are portioned out so that they stay fresh even longer. Since you are only using this once or twice a week, they last a long time. And, the little bar can fit on your Quick Dry Diatomite Tray right alongside your solid face cleanser and moisturizer.

Normally, it takes 3 or more weeks of regular usage of a new product to see results. With physical exfoliation, you will see and feel a difference after the very first use!

Give this quick fix for dry winter skin a try and let me know how it helps!