Winter Beauty Season, Problems Solved

I’ve experienced crazy weather before. I’ve lived my entire life in the Northeast – I’m used rapidly changing seasons. What I am not used to is experiencing at least three of the four seasons in the month of October alone. The past two weeks have been especially weird. Last Thursday was the first snow-storm of the season (almost four inches accumulated at my house). Less than a week later, the thermometer was pushing 75 degrees (the mailman wore shorts and a t-shirt). And of course, when it’s not extremely warm or extremely cold, it’s raining.

Not surprisingly, a walk through campus (I work at a college) exposed me to at least half of the student population wheezing, coughing, and sneezing. Wonderful. I hear they started giving out free hospital masks and hand sanitizer at the health center. Cold and flu season is upon us, and with it comes what I like to call “winter beauty season.”

Winter beauty season, for me, means plethora unfortunate changes. My skin gets both dry and super-oily, causing breakouts; my hair frizzes; and my hands start to look like one of those moisturizer commercials with either an alligator or a desert, your choice.

Of course, I don’t take any of that sitting down. Throughout this winter beauty season, I will be bringing you my tips for combating the beauty hardships that many people face when the weather gets colder.

How to combat dryness: moisturizer! Ok, it’s obvious for those who tend to have dry skin. But it’s also important for greasy girls (like me) to use an oil-free moisturizer. Cold winter air combined with indoor heating dries out everyone, and when that happens, your skin tends to overproduce oil – double trouble.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t moisturize as well as I should during the summer, but during the winter, I make sure I use my trusty Neutrogena Oil Free Moisturizer on a daily basis. I usually opt for the version with SPF 15. I’m also a fan of Olay moisturizers. It's so important to amp up your moisturizer routine during the colder months. Dryness not only makes your skin look dull, it also makes your makeup look worse and emphasizes fine lines and wrinkles.

The addition of a night cream might be necessary for those with really dry skin. During the winter, I use a rich moisturizer at night with Vitamin C, an antioxidant. I like Sally Beauty brand Beyond Belief Vita C, which is one of the most affordable lines containing V-C. If you tend to break out or have very oily skin, you don't have to use a night cream. A day cream will deliver many of the same benefits without the heaviness.

Dry skin on the body sometimes needs more than moisture. Stubborn dry skin requires a good scrubbing! An easy to make scrub is one part fine grit sea salt, one part olive oil, and a splash of lemon. The salt makes a gentle scrub, the olive oil moisturizes, and the citric acid in the lemon delivers some chemical exfoliation. This is a great scrub for winter knees and elbows, and it smells pretty nice, too.