Dermatologists share how to treat dry skin

Bundle up and moisturize to protect your skin during the winter. (Ascent/PKS Media Inc./Stone RF/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and for many people that means having the spotlight on your body’s largest organ — skin.

In cold climates the skin can become substantially drier, and the effects can be seen all over—including a flaky scalp and peeling skin on the face and coarse hands — sometimes leading to painful cracking and bleeding.

There are ways, however, to take care of your skin before it reaches high levels of dryness, say experts who spoke to CNN. Here’s what to know and what to do about it.

Why cold weather can dry out your skin

The environment and temperatures that you’re exposed to coupled with the skin’s lack of moisture retention contribute to dryness.

“When it comes to the dry skin, it’s really a matter of that top barrier that’s not holding onto the moisture as well,” said Dr. Jennifer Stein, a dermatologist at NYU Langone Health.

It’s not just the cold temperature outside that affects your skin.

The combination of the two extremes—cold weather outdoors and warmer temperature indoors— and the fluctuation between the two impacts your skin, Dr. Emma Guttman-Yassky, chair of the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology at New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told CNN.

“You go between being very, very cold—and then your skin gets flaky—but then you go to the heated environment that dries your skin. And you want to alleviate it and get into a super-hot shower, so all of these make it worse,” Guttman-Yassky said.

Even short-term exposure to indoor heat can leave a mark on the skin, research shows.

Chronic skin conditions can worsen in winter

If you have chronic medical conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, it’s not unusual to experience flare-ups during cold days.

During the winter, Guttman-Yassky sees many patients with dry skin but also sees more patients who already suffer from eczema. That affects about 10% of the US population, or 31.6 million people, according to the National Eczema Association.

If your skin is red, inflamed and itchy with eczema, you may need a medicated cream, Stein said, and you should ask your doctor about the condition.

Psoriasis, an autoimmune skin disease, can appear as scaly and inflamed patches of skin. Cold, dry weather can trigger flare-ups, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association.

“Sunlight tends to make it a little better,” Stein said. “When people are more covered up in clothing like they are in the fall and the winter, some people’s psoriasis gets worse.”

“Moisturizing can sometimes help psoriasis, but there are many excellent treatments for psoriasis that your dermatologist can prescribe to help,” Stein added.

Cracks in the skin resulting from dryness can also increase the risk of skin infections, Dr. Tyler Barrett, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, previously told CNN.

“We all have bacteria that live on our skin, and your skin serves as a barrier, keeping that bacteria from infecting you, so if you do get dry, cracked skin, you are at some slightly increased risk,” Barrett said.

Dry skin can get worse with age

Dry skin is another condition that appears more frequently with aging.

“Every year your skin’s ability to hold on to moisture, the barrier of the skin, gets weaker,” Stein said. “It’s that top layer that acts like a barrier—that holds in the natural moisture. And so, the moisture of your skin is evaporating.”

For those with eczema, the time that symptoms are prevalent lengthens with age and may occur earlier in the winter, Stein said.

It’s time to moisturize and repeat

The best thing to do is to moisturize before you see signs of dryness.

“Most important is moisturizing and moisturizing frequently,” Stein said. She recommends using a thick moisturizer—like a cream or ointment—especially right after showering when the skin is still damp, and reapplying often.

The tip also applies to the lips, to keep the chapping at bay. “Keep moisturizing,” Stein said.

Paying special attention to areas where you’re more prone to dryness could also be useful.

“For people who wash their hands a lot, it’s going to be the back of their hand, and then especially as people get older, it’s their legs,” Stein said. “The lower legs get very dry.”

Guttman-Yassky recommends sealing the moisture in your hands through gloves. “It’s good to moisturize and put gloves on top because then the moisture will penetrate better.”

Look for these ingredients

When shopping for moisturizer, the options can seem endless, but Dr. Roger Kapoor, a dermatologist and executive at Beloit Health System in Wisconsin, said to focus on a few key ingredients, including chemicals that both attract and lock in water.

“If you really need some quick hydration for your skin—it’s really dry and you just want to do a power punch of hydration—hyaluronic acid is your go-to chemical or your go-to ingredient,” Kapoor told CNN.

Both hyaluronic acid and glycerin are humectants, and act as “water magnets,” he said.

Kapoor describes glycerin as “a smaller particle that can penetrate your skin deeper and result in more long-term, deeper hydration as a whole.”

He recommends pairing hydration chemicals with niacinamide, a form of vitamin B3, “to really strongly enhance that skin barrier.”

Finally, for locking in hydration, he recommends looking for products that contain ceramides and squalane.

“Ceramides are fats, like lipids, and they help to seal in the water,” Kapoor said. Squalane “also helps retain that moisture. It’s a stabilizer for that hydration.”

These chemicals are often paired together and over-the-counter products might have many of these ingredients, Kapoor said.

Hot water can dry you out

A hot bath or shower might be tempting after stepping out of the cold, but experts recommend limiting the amount of time you’re immersed in hot water.

Limit your showers to 5 to 7 minutes, not 30 to 45 minutes, because too much water contact will dry your skin, Guttman-Yassky said. She also recommended reducing your time in heated pools and not leaving sweat on your skin for prolonged periods of time.

Kapoor said that hot showers cause the skin’s natural oils that help to trap hydration to go away.

“They boil up, so to speak. So, it’s kind of counterintuitive, but lukewarm showers up to 10 minutes at a time is best during the winter times,” he said.

Invest in a humidifier

You might dislike a climate that experiences lots of humidity at some point in the year, but it has its advantages, however, when it comes to taking care of your skin.

For those who don’t have natural humidity, “using a humidifier puts more moisture into the air and can help with dry skin,” Stein said.

Limit scratching even if you have the itch

“Especially for older people who can have very dry legs, if they’re getting itchy and they’re scratching at the legs, the skin can break down and it can be harder to heal,” Stein said. “You can make wounds in the skin just from the scratching.”

Instead, soothe your skin by applying moisturizer.

Replace hand sanitizers with handwashing

Using alcohol-based hand sanitizers can contribute to the very condition you may be trying to avoid this winter. Experts recommend washing your hands properly instead.

But if you’re unable to wash your hands that moment, “get the sanitizer that has some moisture in it or some moisturizing agent,” Guttman-Yassky said. “Alcohol is terrible for the skin.”