Health: Nourish your skin in winter

Winter is a time of itchiness and dryness. Flaky skin becomes a norm and constant nourishment becomes essential. You might bundle yourself up in layers of wool but the skin underneath needs much more. Therefore, you need to keep yourself well-moisturized throughout.

Here are some easy ways to keep your skin well hydrated and skip the winter woes:

Quick Shower: It may be tempting to treat yourself with a long hot bath during the cold winter and lie there for hours and hours. However, hot water is as pleasant as it feels. One hour of hot water may result in dry skin all day. Hot water rids your skin off natural oils that maintain the moisture levels in the body. This makes the skin dry and itchy and in the long run can even alter your skin type.

Thus, try to avoid long hot water baths. Instead take a short shower in lukewarm water!

 Moisturize Well: Do not wait until you have dried yourself off completely before you proceed to apply moisturizer. Moisturizers essentially trap the water in the outer layers of you skin and keep it hydrated. So apply them immediately after you are out of the shower. Just pat yourself dry with a towel and apply moisturizers all over the body. For those with extremely dry skin, it’s better to use creams and ointments rather than lotions because of their increased water content.

 Less Humidity: Winter time is the time when humidity is on an all-time low. In summers, dry skin can absorb moisture from the outside air, but during the winters that can’t be done. Add to this the drying effects of indoor heating systems, sudden changes in temperatures and you know that its one long torture for the skin. A good solution will be to turn on your humidifiers and keep yourself well hydrated from the inside.