10 Tips to Keep Your Skin Hydrated
Having dehydrated skin can be annoying, and the itching it causes can sometimes be unbearable. The good news is healing with dehydrated skin isn’t complicated!
There are a few things you can do or add to your daily routine to ensure that your skin stays hydrated, moisturized, and glowing throughout the day. If you are someone battling dehydrated skin, then you may find this post helpful. This is because, in this post, we will share with you 10 tips on how to hydrate skin.
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Difference Between A Dry Skin And A Dehydrated Skin:
The first step to keeping your skin hydrated has to do with knowing the difference between dehydrated skin and dry skin. This is because most people often treat dry skin thinking that will make their skin moisturized; however, that isn’t the case.
Dry skin is a skin type that lacks oil or sebum, while dehydrated skin is a skin condition where the skin lacks water. From the definitions, we can deduce that dehydrated skin is temporal and can be treated faster and easier than dry skin conditions.
That being said; let’s take a look at how you can keep your skin hydrated!
#1. Take Warm/Cold Showers
How you start or end your day can determine whether your skin will be moisturized or dry. Often, we overlook how the shower we take can affect our skin.
The best way to start your day for the benefit of your skin is to take a cold shower. One mistake people make that causes them to have dry skin is that take hot showers in the morning during the winter. While bathing with hot water might help you feel warm for a while, the truth is: it is bad for your skin.
Hot water strips away the skin’s oil (sebum oil) that is responsible for proper skin health. This causes an imbalance in the skin’s water content, proteins (such as keratin), and moisture responsible for protecting your skin and keeping it moisturized and hydrated. in worse cases, bathing with hot water may have the same effect on your skin just like sunburn, causing redness and itching.
Therefore, you want to make sure that you are taking cold showers, or if cold showers aren’t your thing, try taking warm showers. Unlike bathing with hot water, bathing with cold water increases blood flow to your skin, and this ensures that all pores and tissues work effectively to give you moisturized skin. Do not spend too much time taking a shower, though!
Even though we recommend you take cold showers, it is important to note that you do not want to spend so much time in the shower. This can neutralize the benefit your skin will enjoy from the cold shower.
This is because just like taking a hot shower, taking a cold/warm shower for too long can strip away the skin of its sebum oil and natural barrier. This makes the skin susceptible to irritants and leads to dryness of the skin.
We recommend you do not spend more than 4 minutes in the shower. And also, spending less time in the shower will save you money on some water costs. And you’ll increase your skin’s ability to soak up that AHA serum even more!
#2. Check Your Soap!
Another reason why your skin might be dry during the day could be because the soap you use might be too harsh for your skin. Often we blindly purchase soaps without knowing the ingredients or knowing what soap is ideal for our skin. When purchasing soap, there are a couple of things you want to look out for– especially if you have dry or sensitive skin:
Avoid soaps with Fragrance
According to the Academy of Dermatologists, soaps with fragrances (especially artificial) can have a drying effect on your skin, and in worst cases (for sensitive skins), they can irritate your skin. This is because most artificial fragrances are composed of various chemicals such as alcohol, dyes, and others, that have been mixed to give the soap its fragrance. Therefore, when you use such soap on your skin, they interact with the skin causing irritation and dryness.
Find Soaps With Glycerin
Ensure that the soap you use contains glycerin. Glycerin is a substance that acts as a humectant and an emollient, this means it keeps your skin hydrated by retaining moisture, and it gives you supple and soft skin. Also, you can purchase glycerin and add it to your pomade to give you moisturized and hydrated skin.
Alternatively, you want to find soaps with organic vegetable oils such as avocado, olive oil, cocoa butter, and Shea butter. These vegetable oils help keep your skin moisturized and hydrated throughout the day.
Avoid Soaps With Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
SLS is a compound that is present in detergents and it is a strong chemical that washes away dirt from clothes and any washable object. Most soaps do contain this compound and due to the strong nature of this compound, when you use it on your skin, it clears off the protective barrier on the skin.
#3. Drink A Lot Of Water
If you are looking to keep your body and skin hydrated, then you want to make sure that you are consuming enough water. This is the easiest to-do tip on this list!
Water has a lot of benefits
- It keeps your skin hydrated.
- When you drink water, it gets absorbed into the skin cells and cells in other parts of the body.
- When this happens, the skin cells get filled up, hence they stretch out to improve the skin’s elasticity.
- This causes the stretch out skin to prevent water from evaporating from the skin; hence, keeping your skin hydrated.
- Also, the stretched-out cells help prevent wrinkles from showing.
Also, drinking water flushes out any toxins that may affect your skin and your body’s function. Drinking a lot of water can be boring; however, you can make it a bit fun by infusing the water with some fruits or vegetables. This will give the water a sweet taste and smell, and make the whole water drinking process fun.
Alternatively, you can add certain fruits that have a high water content such as coconut to your daily routine, since they give the same benefit as drinking water.
#4. Use A Humidifier
Many might not know this, but a humidifier can help keep your skin hydrated-especially during the winter. Essentially, during the wintertime when the air is dry, the humidifier releases moisture into the air and retains the moisture to ensure that your room is humid. This prevents your skin from giving up moisture as you sleep; hence, keeping your skin hydrated throughout the night and during the day.
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#5. Use Sunscreen
The sun is everywhere, and it is the ultimate source of heat, and exposure to the sun over long periods can cause the sun rays to penetrate the skin. One of the major causes of skin dehydration is a damaged skin barrier, which is why you must protect your skin barrier at all costs using sunscreen.
A damaged skin barrier causes moisture on and in the skin to evaporate, causing your skin to lose its moisture. One way to protect yourself against the harness of the sun is to apply sunscreen. Sunscreen prevents sun rays from getting to your skin; hence, it prevents the sun from evaporating moisture from your skin.
#6. Exfoliate
Another way to ensure that your skin looks hydrated is to exfoliate. Well, over time, the outer layer of our skin dies. This causes our skin to accumulate dirt and dead cells on the surface. When this happens, the dead cells and dirt clogs up pores and causes the oil from the sebaceous layer to not get to the surface of the skin, and this occurrence causes our skin to dry.
Also, when the dead cells pack up and create a layer on your skin, which prevents the moisturizers and hydrating cream you apply to your body from getting absorbed by the skin. Exfoliating gets rid of all the dead cells on the surface, this also unclogs all pores causing blood to flow to the skins effectively, as well as, causing sebum from the sebaceous layer to get to the surface to give you that hydrated look. Exfoliation can also help you get an even skin tone.
Some Tips on Exfoliating:
- It is important to note that you do not want to exfoliate often because it can cause an imbalance in the supply of sebum to the epidermis of the skin. This can lead to other complications such as acne and oily skin.
- Depending on your skin type, you might want to go in for a natural exfoliator or a scrub. If you have dry and sensitive skin, then you want to use an AHA or a BHA exfoliator for your skin. With AHA and BHA exfoliators, all you need to do is to rub them on your skin and wait a few seconds or minutes before washing them off, and they should have your skin exfoliated.
- Using a scrub on a dry and sensitive may cause microtears on the skin since you will have to physically scrub the scrub on your skin or face.
- Scrubbing your face can peel off the layer of the skin over time. However, if you have normal skin and you want to exfoliate, you can use either a scrub or an AHA/BHA exfoliator.
- Finally, it is recommended that you exfoliate two to three times a week.
#7. Use a Cleanser
While you cannot exfoliate every day, you can use a cleanser every day which can be beneficial to keeping your skin hydrated and supple. A cleanser breaks through the surface tension of the skin to get rid of all the oils and dirt your skin accumulated throughout the day. Cleansers are also great at getting rid of any excess makeup on your skin.
Irritated skin can lead to all sorts of other skin issues. The primary way to have healthy skin is to keep it clean every single day. This will remove dead skin cells, penetrate and remove dirt from the deeper layers of your skin, improve the barrier function and help refresh your skin’s natural oils.
Some Tips on Cleaning Your Skin:
- Cleansing every morning and evening(if you can) improves the skin’s ability to absorb moisture.
- We recommend that you shy away from harsh cleansers (cleansers with scrubbing agents or soaps) since these types of cleansers can be too stripping.
- Ensure that you choose a cleanser that is mild and helps boost skin hydration such as a water-based cleanser.
#8. Use a Toner
Toners are extremely beneficial to your skin when it comes to trying to keep your skin hydrated, which is why you need to add a toner to your skincare routine to help you look hydrated throughout the day.
There are many benefits to using toner in your skin care routine. Toner balances out the pH of the skin. After taking a shower or cleansing your face skin, your skin might lose its pH temporarily causing it to be slightly alkaline. When this happens, the skin looks flaky and dry. Balancing the pH of your skin involves balancing the oil-to-moisture content of the skin.
According to the experts, skin with a well-balanced pH (a slightly acidic skin) aids in retaining moisture on and in the skin, keeping you hydrated, and keeping bacteria out which can cause acne or other inflammations.
A toner also tightens the skin: A tightened skin is rejuvenated and it acts as a barrier to prevent water loss. Finally, using a toner prepares your skin to fully absorb moisturizer or hydrating pomade you use on your skin by removing any makeup residue or residues from your cleanser, causing you to enjoy the full benefit of these products.
#9. Use A Moisturizer
Moisturizing your skin is an essential skincare routine if you are looking to keep your skin moisturized and hydrated throughout the day. The moisturizer you choose can greatly impact how your skin hydrates.
This is why we recommend that you choose water-based moisturizers with some hydrating elements such as hyaluronic acid, glycerine, lactic acid, and ceramide. Having these elements present in your moisturizer will ensure that your skin doesn’t only stay moisturized but hydrated as well.
#10. Be Mindful of Your Diet
One thing that people often are ignorant about is that the food you eat can affect your skin’s hydration. If you are looking to keep your skin hydrated, ensure that you avoid eating a lot of processed foods. Processed foods contain a lot of sodium and when the body’s sodium level is high, affects the kidney’s function and removes water from the body and skin, which in turn, causes your skin to become dehydrated since the body will pull water from the cells to neutralize the sodium levels.
This is why we recommend eating a lot of fruits and vegetables with high water concentrations; however, whenever you eat any processed foods, ensure to drink any lot of water to compensate for the water absorbed from the cells.
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For over 60 years, Viviane Woodard has represented “The Purity of Skincare”. We are the leading beauty brand for skin care products and promote the importance of good skin hydration. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest for skin care tips, product discounts, and more.