6 Ways to Update Your Skin Routine for Winter

6 Ways to Update Your Skin Routine for Winter Winter is here, and it’s bringing dry skin with it. Between the freezing temperatures outside and the dry air in your home, your skin takes a beating during the cold winter months. To keep your skin looking its best throughout the snowy season, you’ll need to update your skin care routine. Here’s how: 1. Start Layering Your Skin Care Products To prevent water from drying out your skin, start layering your skin care products to create multiple protective barriers. Hot water actually removes surface lipids from your skin, which allows moisture to leak and your skin to dry out. Applying multiple layers of moisturizing products will help fight against dryness. Try using a variety of products, such as moisturizers, mists and skin boosters. 2. Stop Taking Long, Hot Showers When temperatures drop, it’s natural to want to take a hot shower or bath. The warm water relaxes tired muscles and helps you de-stress, but spending too much time in hot water can be disastrous for your skin. Eventually, your skin will start leaching out your skin’s natural moisturizers, which only makes dry, itchy skin even worse. 3. Exfoliate Before Shaving It’s always a good idea to exfoliate before shaving, but it becomes even more important in the winter. Exfoliation will remove dead and dry skin, which tends to get worse during the winter. Electric razors can help you save time when shaving. We recommend that you do your research to know more about a women’s electric razor before diving in and buying one. Some women choose to just give up on shaving during the winter. But if you don’t want to go this route, make sure that you’re at least exfoliating before each shaving session. 4. Use Sheet Masks More Often Sheet masks are all the rage in the beauty industry. Why? Because they’re easy to use, and they leave your skin feeling soft and moisturized. While clay masks are great for removing impurities, they can be drying and irritating to the skin. Stick to hydrating sheet masks with skin-nourishing ingredients. 5. Don’t Forget to Wear SPF The weather may be gloomy and cold, but the suns UV rays are still around â€" and they can still damage your skin. UV radiation is year-round, and the snow-covered ground can actually worsen UV radiation exposure due to reflection. Don’t put your sunscreen back on the shelf just because it’s winter. Make sure that it’s still a regular part of your skincare routine. 6. Switch to a Gentle Cleanser If your skin feels drier than usual, you may assume that your moisturizer is doing a bad job. But in most cases, dry skin is actually caused by harsh cleansers. Yes, your cleanser removes makeup, dirt and dead skin, but it also removes your skin’s natural protective barrier. Switching to a mild cleanser will give your skin a much-needed break. Gentle cleansers still remove dirt and makeup, but they don’t strip away as much natural oil. One last tip: try cutting back on how often you cleanse your face. Cleansing twice a day in the summer may be fine because you’re sweating and producing more oil. But in the drying winter months, it may be better to cut down to cleansing just once a day.