Dry skin: 5 tips

Signs of dry skin

Dry skin can be recognized by the appearance of fine dehydration lines, a dull complexion and, in extreme cases, roughness, flaking and cracking.
You may also feel tightness and itching, medically termed pruritus.

Identifying the causes of dry skin

Before understanding how to care for dry skin, it's essential to understand the causes of this problem. Several factors may be responsible:

• Natural aging: over time, skin loses its elasticity and ability to retain water,
• Sun exposure: UV rays damage the skin's protective barrier,
• Climatic variations: cold, wind, dry or humid air can cause skin discomfort,
• Lotions and cleansers: certain products containing irritating ingredients can cause skin dehydration.

Adapting your beauty routine to dry skin

To bring comfort and moisture to your dry skin, it's crucial to adapt your beauty routine to its specific needs.

Choose gentle cleaning products

Aggressive products can irritate and further dehydrate your skin. By opting for a gentle skincare routine, you'll preserve the skin barrier and minimize feelings of tightness. Choose a soap-free moisturizing cleanser containing superfatting agents such as glycerine or vegetable oils.

The right thing to do when cleaning

It's also important to adopt appropriate gestures when cleansing the face: don't scrub too hard, avoid hot water which can be drying, use lukewarm or even cold water instead, and don't forget to rinse well.

Promote skin hydration

To care for dry skin, it's essential to give it a good dose of moisture and maintain its optimal water level.

Establish a daily moisturizing routine

The fundamental step is to apply a moisturizing cream adapted to dry skin every day, to reinforce the cutaneous barrier and retain water in the epidermis. Don't neglect this step morning and evening, after cleansing your face.

Pamper your skin with a repairing mask

Once a week, treat yourself to a moment of cocooning by applying a moisturizing, nourishing mask to your face. This treatment will deeply repair your skin and give it a radiant glow.

Specific body care

We mustn't forget that the rest of the body can also suffer from dry skin. To pamper your skin, here are a few tips:

• Limit hot baths and showers Warm water weakens the skin's protective barrier,
• Gently exfoliate your skin Scrub regularly to eliminate dead cells and promote skin renewal,
• Moisturize your body daily After each bath or shower, apply a moisturizing cream for dry skin all over your body.

Aggravating factors for dry skin

First, the season: winter and cold weather put the sebaceous glands to rest, and drier ambient air worsens the skin's condition.
Good hot baths and long showers increase your skin's permeability, as does significant heating, which reduces ambient humidity.
The use of certain cosmetics such as retinol and exfoliants
And of course, age! Over time, skin becomes drier and drier, and this phenomenon begins in the mid-thirties.

Dry or dehydrated skin

It is very easy to confuse dry skin with dehydrated skin, and dry skin is a skin type just like dehydrated skin. oily skin and normal to combination skin.
To sum up, dry skin lacks oil and dehydrated skin lacks water.
When we say that dry skin lacks oil, we mean that it doesn't produce enough sebum and that there's a defect in the intercellular lipids. Intercellular lipids are the lipids found between keratinocytes in the most superficial layer of our epidermis, the stratum corneum.
On the other hand, the keratin that covers the keratinocytes may also be of poor genetic quality in people with dry skin. This lack of "oil" causes an insensible loss of water! So, while pores may be small and imperfections rare, the downside is a lack of radiance and wrinkles that appear more quickly.
Dehydrated skin
Dehydrated skin lacks water, which means it can be oily or combination skin that doesn't have a sebum production problem, but is dehydrated due to the environment or unsuitable skin care. As a result, you feel tightness but your skin is shiny because dehydration causes excessive sebum production.
In this case, use more humectant-rich products such as glycerin, natural moisturizing factors and hyaluronic acid for ptake care of your face

Dry skin is a skin type It's particularly important to take care of your skin, as dryness accentuates wrinkles and worsens the loss of radiance. To remedy this, I'm going to give you five tips and share my recommendations for lotions, serums, creams and balms.

1) Day and night moisturizers:

Sulfates can be found in the list of ingredients: "sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate". These are fairly aggressive surfactants, especially the former, which eliminate sebum but also damage the intercellular lipids and keratin on the surface of our keratinocytes. By using them, your skin barrier becomes even more damaged and dry, but that's not all. Your skin becomes sensitized, i.e. it becomes more vulnerable to pollution and aggressive cosmetic active ingredients, and less application of retinol causes redness. This advice applies not only to your face, but also to your body!
So stop buying a cleansing gel or soap that will remove all the lipid film from your face, and opt instead for a cleansing oil, milk or balm.

Make-up remover:

Cleaner:

Visit best cleansing gels for dry skin.

3) Use a moisturizing lotion just after cleansing

This will prevent your skin from dehydrating, but it will also enable the humectants to capture the water still present on your skin's surface.
If your skin is irritated, don't hesitate to use lotions with soothing active ingredients such as aloe vera, centella asiatica, allantoin and niacinamide. You should also opt for lotions with a richer formula that will bring you comfort quickly.
A moisturizing lotion I can recommend:

4) Stop excessive exfoliation and scrubs!

When we exfoliate our skin, we trigger an inflammatory reaction that stimulates the synthesis of collagen and elastin. However, if this inflammation becomes chronic, there is no longer any benefit, but rather an exacerbation of dryness and premature aging. This doesn't mean that people with dry skin should give up exfoliation, as a well-executed exfoliation removes dead cells and improves the penetration of moisturizing products. The principle remains to exfoliate less, but to exfoliate better. In our case, we'll be looking for formulas containing an alpha hydroxy acid that not only exfoliates, but also moisturizes the skin's surface.

A less expensive alternative is lactic acid at 5% with hyaluronic acid from The ordinary, which will exfoliate but also moisturize your skin.

Choose a moisturizer with the right ingredients

I'd like to talk to you about 3 ingredients in particular, urea and oats, which you can incorporate into your morning beauty routine, and ceramides, which you can incorporate into your evening beauty routine.

5) Sunscreen cream for dry skin

We want a sun cream that moisturizes the face and has a sufficiently rich formula. Avoid sunscreens that contain too much silica, which tends to absorb all the oil present on the skin's surface. Choose a sun cream for dry skin which contains sufficient moisturizing agents and, of course, SPF 50. The other thing is to apply sun protection every day, as UV rays remain the number 1 cause of skin ageing.

A guide to best moisturizers for dry skin.

Dry skin can also be prone toacne.

Anti-dark spot care for dry skin

Dry skin can also have skin imperfection problems: Here's a guide to treating skin imperfections skin imperfections when you have dry skin

Other tips :

• A diet rich in organic fruit and vegetables will provide you with many vitamins essential to the proper functioning of your skin.
  Avoid the sun at all costs, as sun damage to the face and body dries out the epidermis and destroys the collagen, hyaluronic acid and elastin present in the dermis. It has also been proven that the inflammation caused by the sun destroys subcutaneous fat and exacerbates the phenomenon of dehydration.
• Adapt your beauty routine to the season. In winter, cold weather reduces sebaceous gland activity, which worsens skin dryness. In winter, I recommend ultra-rich skin care products that create a protective film and reduce signs of discomfort. For this, I recommend products containing occlusives such as shea butter or mineral oil.
  In summer, basic skin care is all you need except to apply an anti-UV SPF 50 plus cream every day.
• At the start of this guide, I talked about intercellular lipids, which are the "cement" between the keratinocyte "bricks" that make up our skin barrier. These lipids are made up of cholesterol 25%, fatty acids 15% and, above all, ceramides 50%. Ceramides are an essential component of our protective barrier, and a ceramide deficiency worsens our skin dryness, a claim confirmed by numerous studies. If you have a long-running routine but your skin still seems dehydrated, the solution may lie in incorporating more ceramide-containing products. This recommendation is all the more true if you have mature skin, as the level of ceramides present in our skin decreases by 30% over time.

Reynertson KA, Garay M, Nebus J, Chon S, Kaur S, Mahmood K, Kizoulis M, Southall MD. Anti-inflammatory activities of colloidal oatmeal (Avena sativa) contribute to the effectiveness of oats in treatment of itch associated with dry, irritated skin. J Drugs Dermatol. 2015 Jan;14(1):43-8. PMID: 25607907.

My tips for taking care of normal to combination skin: How to treat combination skin

My tips for caring for sensitive skin: How to treat sensitive skin

My tips for caring for mature skin: How to treat mature skin