Winter Skin Care
5 Tips to Help Bring Back the Moisture to Your Skin
Dr. Mallory Harris, ND
Invest in a humidifier
- Not only is our skin getting exposed to low humidity from cold air outdoors, but it is getting exposed from our furnace use indoors.
- The use of a humidifier can help prevent your skin from drying out by adding much needed moisture in the air.
Hydrate
- If you are dehydrated, your skin will be too!
- Try to consume 2 L of water per day-that equals out to 8 cups of water.
- Coffee, black tea and green tea count as a minus one!
- Motivate yourself by infusing your water with something tasty & nutritious like cucumber, mint and lemon/lime.
Eat Omega’s
- Essential fatty acids omega-3 and omega-6 play an important role in building healthy cell membranes including our skins outer lipid layer.
- They are called essential because it is essential we get them from our diet, we cannot make them ourselves.
- Increase your consumption of the following foods for softer, smoother skin: fish, chia, flax, hemp, oats, avocado, nuts, olive oil, coconut oil, sunflower seeds, spirulina.
Read your labels
- Avoid the following drying/ irritating agents in your skin care products: alcohol, sodium lauryl sulfate, triclosan, lye, synthetic dyes & fragrance.
- Look for skin care products with the following hydrating/ healing agents: aloe, tocopherols (vitamin E), chamomile, calendula, rose hip oil, jojoba oil, sweet almond oil, castor oil, zinc.
Exfoliate and Moisturize
- Often times, you can use what you have around the house!
- Exfoliate and moisturize at the same time with a combination of sugar, olive oil and ground oats or ground coffee beans and coconut oil.
- Sugar and ground coffee beans are too harsh for the face-instead, make a DIY face mask using coconut oil, honey & ground oats.
Common Skin Complaints & Gut Health
Read my blog on the importance of gut health when it comes to common inflammatory skin complaints such as acne, eczema, psoriasis and rosacea.
