Best Services to Prepare Your Skin for Winter
With cold, windy weather conditions outside and dry heated air inside, winter is often a skincare nightmare. In climates where heavy winds and cold temperatures are severe enough to chap exposed skin, maintaining a healthy, moisturized complexion is especially difficult during the winter months.
If your skin is feeling more scaley than supple, you might need to pamper it with a spa treatment aimed at restoring moisture and removing unhealthy skin cells. To make sure your skin stays healthy, we compiled a list of the best services to prepare your skin for winter, so that your skin can get back to dewy, hydrated perfection even if the temperature plummets.
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Body Scrubs
Because of the harsher weather conditions this time of year, many people find that their skin cells dehydrate and die out faster than usual, making exfoliation mandatory. It’s important to clear away dead cells so that your moisturizer can penetrate the skin more deeply and work more effectively.
One of the best services to prepare your skin for winter is a body scrub. This spa treatment removes dead skin by incorporating some form of abrasive, whether that’s a mild exfoliant like a sugar scrub or a more aggressive abrasive like a salt scrub or an exfoliating glove. The abrasive is rubbed vigorously and massaged across the skin and then rinsed away to make room for a healthy, fresh layer of skin cells, according to the Good Spa Guide website.
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Make sure to avoid body scrubs if your skin is sunburnt or otherwise damaged, and always moisturize after the treatment! Your skin will be baby soft and winter-ready.
A Hydrating Facial
One of the most popular facials is the hydrating facial, and it’s often the perfect antidote to winter dryness and dehydration. A hydrating facial is a treatment that focuses on returning water content to the skin and helping your face regain its natural moisture balance. This pampering service is comprised of seven parts: cleansing, toning, exfoliation, a serum application, a massage, a face mask, and some final protection products, according to Le Petit Spa.
The hydrating facial is perfect for skin that feels chapped or parched from the harsh winter air, and the benefits of the treatment are manifold. It makes skin appear brighter, improves the texture of the face, curbs excess oil, reduces itchiness and irritation, and creates supple, more moisturized skin, according to the Le Petit Spa blog. It’s the perfect flakey February antidote!
Saunas
Few winter activities are quite as delightful on a cold day as unwinding in a sauna. Not only do saunas flush toxins, relieve stress, and reduce muscle soreness, but they can also improve your complexion. One lesser-known health benefit of saunas is their effect on the skin.
According to dermatologist Dr. Erin Gilbert in an interview for the Dermstore blog, spending time in a sauna helps improve your overall circulation, which boosts blood flow to the skin, which in turn provides more nutrients to the skin and a rosier complexion. It also exercises the pores, increasing your skin’s ability to dilate and regulate temperature, and the heat from the sauna stimulates collagen production, keeping skin firm and youthful.
Skin-Calming Ingredients
According to an article by Glo Skin and Beauty, many people experience increased skin sensitivity when the seasons change. Not only is dry winter air to blame, but seasonal shifts ranging from lifestyle changes to increases in atmospheric pressure can all have effects on our body, including our skin.
For people with sensitive skin, it’s important to pamper your face with skin-calming ingredients in the winter. Look into treatments that incorporate aloe vera and cucumber, two skin-calming “super ingredients” that help with the skin sensitivity that’s caused by changes in the seasons.
Some spas provide facial and body treatments with 100% aloe vera, while cucumbers are a spa staple that you can often ask a masseuse or facialist to incorporate into your treatment.
A Chemical Peel
While winter weather conditions make many aspects of skincare more difficult, there is one perk to the shorter days and decreased sunlight. Some skin procedures require a recovery period in which a patient avoids UV light. The Mayo Clinic suggests that patients who receive a chemical peel, for example, avoid unprotected sun exposure for at least four weeks after the procedure.
A chemical peel is a treatment used to address wrinkles and skin discoloration. According to the Mayo Clinic, “a chemical solution is applied to the skin to remove the top layers. The skin that grows back after a chemical peel is smoother and younger looking.” While four weeks of downtime is pretty hard to manage in the middle of summer, when the days are short already, it might be the perfect time to book an appointment.
