Skin-care expert Tisha Lugliani provides recipes that can aide in caring for skin during those cold winter months.

Skin Wrap

Apply skin lotion immediately after you bathe or shower, while the skin is still damp. Then wrap the skin with plastic wrap. This will trap heat and allow the lotion to better penetrate the skin.

Hydrating Mask

Ingredients:

4 Tbs. chickpea flour
1 mashed, ripe banana
1 egg, beaten

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While autumn brings piles of red-orange leaves and coats are dusted off for the upcoming winter weather, thoughts of sunscreen and bathing suits are quickly forgotten.

And so is skin cancer.

Health Education Coordinator Kathryn Steward said the chances of developing skin damage or skin cancer can still exist during colder months.

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Winter can make dry skin especially irritating. The December issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter offers tips to relieve winter itch.

Soak in the tub: Keep the water lukewarm. The temperature shouldn’t be above 90 F. Adding bath oil to the water may help retain and replenish the oil in your skin.

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Dry skin very commonly produces itching, which can be severe and interfere with sleep and other daily activities. Repeated rubbing and scratching can produce areas of thickened, rough skin (lichenification). Dry, thickened skin can crack, especially in areas subject to chronic trauma (e.g., hands and feet), causing painful cracks in the skin (fissures). Dry skin and scratching may result in a dermatitis when the skin becomes red (inflamed) in addition to dry and scaly. Round, scaly, itchy, red patches scattered over the legs, arms and trunk (nummular eczema) may also appear. The appearance of yellow crusts or pus in these areas indicates that a bacterial infection is developing. This would require specific antibiotic therapy from your dermatologist or family physician.

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The low humidity common in many parts of the United States during winter can cause dry, irritated skin. When skin becomes dry and irritated, eczema can flare. Here are some tips to help skin feel more comfortable during winter or anytime the air is dry:

1. Use a humidifier. With the heat on and the windows closed, the air inside can become very dry in the winter, making the dryness and itching of eczema even worse. Use a humidifier to place moisture in the air. If you don’t want to invest in an expensive humidifying system, smaller, relatively inexpensive humidifiers can be obtained at a local drug store. Placing two or three of these around your home will help to humidify the dry air. This can keep skin from drying and becoming cracked and itchy.

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Regardless of individual skin type, it is critical to moisturize our skin on a daily basis. A wide selection of moisturizers on the market provides us with a great opportunity to choose the product with the best ingredients for our skin’s particular needs. Choosing the best moisturizer for our own skin type elevates the benefits a moisturizer delivers to thirsty skin.

Mature skin may benefit best from moisturizer products containing alpha-hydroxy acid, a wrinkle fighter also present in milk and fruit. Special lines of anti-aging products may also contain selenium and Tropoelastin, a precursor to human elastin that prevents the onset and appearance of wrinkles.

Those who reside in four season countries are more prone to skin damage than those living in the tropics. This is because people of two seasonal climates only need to adjust to two kinds of weather patterns, the summer and the rainy season. This is not the case with those who had to experience summer, winter, spring and fall. Since their skin is exposed to more weather changes, and abrupt changes too seeing as how climate change has altered the standard passing of seasons nowadays, a more intensive skin regimen would be required of them. Hydration is the key for these individuals, as well as sun protection, so that translates to moisturizer and sunblock. During the winter season, people are still advised to wear both because the dry cold could actually burn our skin. For these instances, it is advised that one wears a sunblock mixed with a moisturizer to survive the cold dry months. Without this, skin will peel off from the dry cold and you will also develop mild ice burns.

We all know the feeling - we kick on the furnace for the winter and within days our skin starts screaming… loudly… for attention! It “screams” by getting dry and itchy, developing rough flaky patches, and just generally acting cranky! We have to DO something - we rush to buy the latest, greatest moisturizer - shell out the big bucks for whatever the magazines and TV or our next door neighbor says will WORK. Trouble is, it doesn’t. We are still dry, we still itch, our skin seems to drink in the moisturizer insatiably. WHY?

The answer is amazingly simple. Our skin cells die every single day. They stack up in little not-so-pretty layers. This is true of our faces, hands, body. Some of the cells do manage to flake and fall off but the vast majority like to stick together and hang around, causing problems. Think of it this way - even the best moisturizer in the world can’t fix dead skin!

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