beauty

Winterproof Your Skin

Friends, if you start on a routine TODAY, you will be buttery-soft by Christmas – I promise!

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If you start taking care of your skin, you’ll be softer than these munchkins (courtesy of Daily Monitor)

With the air steadily getting colder and drier, I’ve been getting back into my winter skin routine, which involves shielding myself from the elements, heavier moisture and more intense exfoliation. It’s funny – the skin on my face is combination/oily, so I tend to stick with water-based, oil free facial moisturizers. But the skin below my chin is so dry: I could rub down in vegetable oil and it would be just fine LOL!

This time of year, I’m focused on exfoliation and hydration because these are a surefire way to get soft skin. The trick to exfoliation is to *carefully* double up, using both mechanical (body scrubs, body brushes and exfoliating mitts) and chemical (acids that remove dull, dry skin) products. I use a body scrub once a day, and a mild chemical exfoliant twice a day. I like both Shea Moisture’s body scrubs as well as St. Ives. I find that Shea Moisture’s products have finer, grainier scrubs that really buff away dull skin, but St. Ives is less expensive and not as grainy.


In place of the scrubs, I occasionally use my Korean bath mitts (I’ve written about them previously). But if I use the mitts, I  avoid using the scrubs for at least 3 days afterward. The mitts do a great job of getting rid of dry skin.

As far as chemical exfoliants go, I rely heavily on AmLactin. The lotion is gentle enough for daily use but extremely effective. I use it twice a day on all of the skin below my chin, and it has every inch of me feeling soft and supple. This one is a two-for-one: it exfoliates and moisturizes simultaneously.

I pay careful attention to my skin when using exfoliants. If I feel a bit sensitive (that sometimes occurs with the skin on my chest and upper arms), I’ll either skip my scrub or my AmLactin. I also apply an additional layer of AmLactin to my feet right before bed, because the skin on my feet isn’t as sensitive as the rest of my body. I recommend that you pay careful attention to how your skin reacts and adjust accordingly.

Those are the products I use for soft skin all winter long! Do you have any product recommendations? Please let me know in the comments below!

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