Facial Skincare Tips for Cold Weather

(Note: I am not a medical professional. The information below is for educational purposes only.)

As winter really sinks in in Northern Utah, I am starting to feel the effects on my face of dry, hot air inside and cold dry air outside. My skin feels dryer and duller and more prone to fine wrinkles. Now I know that some of that my be due to turning 42 very soon, however I know that there are natural things I can do and you can too, to help keep your face happy and healthy until spring time comes.

One of my favorite parts about herbalism is that it’s truly a holistic way of taking care of yourself. From the food you eat, the things you drink, the places your go and the stress you are under. There are actionable steps you can take to make sure the whole of you is happy and healthy because our bodies are their own ecosystems that thrive on balance and synergy.

If one part of your ecosystem is out of balance it will have a system wide affect. Think about a forest with a stream running through it. One day a beaver comes and decides the stream is flowing too fast (totally instinctual by the way) and he starts building a dam. He’ll do this one tree at a time. At first the change is slow, but soon enough that damn will begin to back up the water and after a month or two you have a pond in the middle of the forest. Some trees will die and anything that was once above water and is now underwater will die.

So how does this relate to the human body? Well think of something like chronic stress as the beaver. Maybe that stress is emotional or physical or mental. With stress comes elevated cortisol levels. Now a little bit of stress is great for the body. Like running, yoga, doing a hard math test, madly cleaning the house before your in-laws come over. It’s a one time thing that body can easily bounce back from. But if it’s a stress you feel day after day that can begin to manifest as physical problems like gut issues, heart issues, allergies to food you never had before, bad sleep, heart problems, and one that we spend billions of dollars a year on skin problems.

You are probably wondering how is cold weather skincare related to a beaver dam? Well, if we aim to keep our faces happy in the winter we need to make sure to keep our bodies in balance. Good facial care starts from with in. It starts with easy steps that won’t cost you anything and then you can add to that some helpful plants (because you’re here for herbal skincare after all).

Facial Skincare Tips for Cold Weather

Your skin is  the largest organ of your body and the first defender against the elements. The skin on your face is particularly delicate and vulnerable to being damaged. We can start to take care of our faces by being good about what we put in our bodies first.

• Drink lots of water. Preferably wild water. If you can’t get wild spring water try your local health food store they often sell spring water there. If you can’t find that either buy a good charcoal filter and filter your tap water. Allowing it to sit for at least an hour before drinking to let the chlorine dissipate. Chlorine is extremely drying to your skin and mucosal linings. You know how you feel like a rubber band stretched too far after you get out of the pool? That’s the drying effect of chlorine.

• Try to limit drying beverages like alcohol, wine, black teas and coffee. Anything that is heavy in tannins is an astringent and will dry out your cells from the inside out.

• Eat good fats. Things like olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, lard and tallow along with grass-fed butter. Your body needs good fats for both nourishment and moisturizing.

• Put a filter on your shower and your bathroom sink. Washing your face with un-chlorinated softer water makes a huge difference in your skin’s health.

• I say this all the time but it’s so important, limit sugar in take unless you are about to go to the gym or do some sort of strenuous exercise. It spikes blood sugar levels sending all of your digestive organs into destress. To your liver, sugar is as bad alcohol. Your liver is a key player in skin health. I’ll have post on this in the future.

• Get to sleep early and get enough sleep. If there was one thing that is more important than drinking water it would be getting sleep. Your liver begins the process of filtering your blood once your are asleep. If you don’t sleep it can’t complete that filtration cycle. It’s a major reason you feel so yucky after a late night or a restless night sleep, even if you haven’t been drinking.

• Eat lots of anti-oxidant rich foods. Anti-oxidants help prevent aging by reducing free radicals. The bad cells that turn into melanoma and other cancers.

Now let’s talk about what to put on your face to help protect it from cold weather.

• Wash your skin with lukewarm water not hot. Hot water is very drying even if that hot shower feels so good. Your face doesn’t want that.

• Use a cold process soap that will cleanse your skin of dirt and grim but not strip it of it’s natural oils.

• Get a dry brush for faces and use that to help you exfoliate dry skin. This will help keep your skin looking fresher and allow your moisturizer to get into the newer layer of skin.

• Depending on how long you will be out in the elements make sure to use a daily moisturizer. When I go on winter hikes, snow shoeing or work in my garden for a few hours I will put on a thicker layer of rose hips seed oil. This is especially good for mature skin. I like simple things and rose hip seed oil is a very simple one ingredient thing.

• If you are out for long periods in very cold temperatures like below 32 degrees, I highly recommend a salve to create a barrier between your skin and the cold. Plantain salve made with jojoba oil and beeswax is particularly awesome. Many people who lived in more northerly states used to use bear grease. I would recommend salve made with tallow as well. Nothing worse than coming home wind and cold burned.

• If you are out in the snow, sunscreen is an absolute must. Find a good one made with zinc oxide. Getting a sun burn in the winter is just as bad as getting wind burned.

• Keep the wind and cold off your face in general. Use a balaclava or scarf that can cover the lower parts of your face. And use sunglasses (you don’t want snow blindness and anyone who’s ever gotten eye injuries from wind burn can tell your it’s not fun).

• When you get home if your face is very cold, gently warm it and wash it if needed, re-apply your moisturizer.

I hope these winter skincare tips help. If you live somewhere with very cold temperatures I’d love to hear how you deal with keeping your face happy in the cold weather.