Winter Skincare: 6 Tips to Protect Your Skin Throughout Winter

Dryness, flakiness, dehydration, and redness coupled with colder nights and a familiar nip in the morning air. There’s no doubt — winter is here. And, just as you switch over your wardrobe from sundresses to scarves, now is also the time to tweak your skincare routine to keep your skin healthy and glowing — despite the harsher winter climate.

Your skin is your largest organ — and is directly in contact with the environment even when wearing clothes — and in winter its ability to retain water decreases. Colder weather brings with it an accompanying drop in environmental humidity, which explains why your skin can feel drier and even scaly during the cooler months. The more exposed areas, our hands and faces, are the most affected. Fortunately, there are ways to keep your skin adequately hydrated and avoid developing uncomfortably dry skin and the curses of cold weather. Lamelle’s Medical Trainer, Karen Bester offers 6 ways important tips for winter skincare:

Baby it’s cold outside:

Watch the heat! While it might be cold, heaters and hot showers are likely to sap moisture from your skin. At a time when the air is already dry, you’ll just make it worse.

Change your cleanser:

The easiest way to prevent your skin from drying out is not to remove its oils in the first place. If you are removing them, replace them immediately. Creamy gel and lipid-based cleansers, like the Lamelle Serra Cleansing Gel, do both. They may contain surfactants that loosen the potentially contaminated oils on your skin – but they replace them with lipids contained in the products. The upshot of this approach is your skin gets properly cleansed of pollutants and free radicals, while staying beautifully hydrated.

Add Oil & Up Your Lipids:

Dry and dehydrated is not the same thing. If your skin is dry it means the surface layer is lacking in moisture and can present as peeling flaky skin. Dehydration, on the other hand, is when the lower levels deep within the epidermis are short on moisture and your skin will appear dull. Either way you need not wait out winter with dry or dehydrated skin, there are treatments for both conditions.

It’s a common misconception that simply slathering on extra moisturiser will reverse the effects of winter on your skin. It won’t. Rather opt for moisturisers with a higher lipid content that is biocompatible with the lipids in your skin. The closer the structure is to the lipids in human skin – the greater the moisturising effect. Oil often gets a bad wrap, but, you can also add more oil to the skin to step up the lipid content of your daily and nightly moisturisers. It’s also important to consider what other advantages the moisturiser will provide. So be sure to review what active ingredients they contain, bearing in mind that at a minimum, antioxidants should feature on the ingredient list. Try a lipid-based serum such as Lamelle’s Correctives Vita C lipid Serum for a vitamin c-packed treat for winter skin.

Invest in a hydrating moisturiser:

Investing in a hydrating moisturiser is a must during the winter months. Try something like the Lamelle Serra Soothing Cream. The full Serra range, has been formulated to replace the lipid bi-layer in dry, damaged and sensitised skin. The main ingredient has the same structure as that of lipid bi-layer, and contains all the ceramides, free fatty acids and oils that your skin will naturally make to replace lost structures. Serra Soothing Cream also contains anti-inflammatory peptides that calm and sooth irritation so it is able to calm the redness that is associated with cold, winter weather.

Lamelle Nourish Revitalise Cream combines lipids that compare well to the ones found in your skin (biomimetic) with potent anti-oxidants. It also contains an ingredient that will fix recent DNA damage caused by free radicals. This is your best option for fixing and preventing the harm caused by the free radicals that cause ageing and will keep your skin well hydrated and moisturised.

Serums will Save Your Skin in Winter:

No winter skin survival kit should be without a serum. Serums have the ability to penetrate deeper into the layers of your skin. Hyaluronic acid is a complex carbohydrate that traps and shares water in your skin, keeping it plump and hydrated.

Exploring the Benefits of Medical Cannabis and the Popularity of the White Widow Strain

Try boosting your skincare routine with the Lamelle Correctives HA+ Serum, which has five types of hyaluronic acid ingredients that will replace lost Hyaluronic acid and will also stimulate your cells to produce more. This is an excellent product to use for preventing and treating dry skin in general; from repairing the texture to plumping with radiance – you can’t survive winter without a serum. Allow a minute or two for the serum to sink in before applying your moisturiser and the serum will plump skin within an hour and will keep it hydrated.

Don’t Forget your Body:

While you’re treating your skin, don’t forget about your body. The arms and legs are particularly susceptible to cold weather woes so it’s important to give these areas some extra TLC during the winter months. The Serra Body Lotion is part of the Lamelle Serra Range which has been specifically developed by Lamelle to specifically treat dry and sensitive skin. It is even safe to use on children.

Sunscreen and in-salon treatments:

Another fact of winter is that because of the cold weather we spend less time outdoors and in the sun. This does not mean you should stop wearing sunscreen, however. In Johannesburg especially there is less cloud cover so the intensity of the suns intensity actually increases in winter. So make sure you keep applying your sunscreen daily during winter.

You can, however, use this time to prepare your skin for summer. Winter is considered the best time for peels. This is especially true if you are opting for more aggressive peels where your skin will visibly peel off. Many people will also focus on areas that can be covered up in winter: neck and décolleté, hands and arms are easily covered with clothing and gloves. Have the discussion with your skincare professional on which peels would be best suited for the challenges you are experiencing with your skin. A course of peels begun in winter will give you wonderful results come summer.