Help your skin from chapped to supple
The skin has a hard time at this time of year. Of course a cream cannot work miracles, but you can limit the damage (drought wrinkles!) by greasing with a good product.
Young, healthy skin can defend itself well against the winter elements: it still produces a lot of lipids. These skin-specific fats form a water-resistant protective layer on the skin. Not only does this layer protect the skin against external influences, it also ensures that the moisture in the skin does not evaporate.
But as we age, production decreases. Less lipids means less moisture-rich and therefore drier skin. Cold doesn’t make things any better. Lipids become less flexible and spreadable at low temperatures. This also applies to the skin’s own lipids, which are less well distributed over the skin in the cold. This way there are ‘holes’ in the protective layer. There is only one way to keep your skin supple in the winter and that is to apply!
Skin is different in winter
Test: does the cream feel good?
If an airy emulsion is enough in the summer, the skin needs full, creamy creams in the winter. This doesn’t mean you have to walk around with a shiny face. Even the creamiest products are generally absorbed fairly quickly.
If a cream remains as a layer of fat on the skin, it is probably too creamy for you. But a cream that disappears like snow in the sun into the skin and gives little flexibility, is not fat enough. So try it out!
Creamy creams that replenish lipid deficiency
➊ Decubal Face Cream Vital with 18 percent lipids (€12.50).
dr. van der Hoog Hypo Sensitive SOS Balm contains Vaseline, cocoa butter and shea butter (€13.99).
➌ L’Oréal Extraordinary Oil is a nourishing day and night cream with shea butter and oils (€16.99).
First an oil change
There are more and more nourishing facial oils that absorb surprisingly quickly into the skin. Applied daily under the day cream, such an oil is a useful addition to the care ritual in winter.
Gentle oils for very dry skin:
➍ Boots Serum7 Active Night Oil contains a mix of nine natural oils (€28.95).
➎ Decubal Serum contains lipids, jojoba, avocado and almond oil (€ 19.99).
➏ Clinique Turnaround Revitalizing Treatment Oil contains oils and salicylic acid to strengthen the skin (€48).
Smoother with Hyaluronic Acid
Lipids protect the skin from moisture loss by covering it with a waterproof layer. Hyaluronic acid retains moisture in the skin. The fabric is a moisture miracle: it can bind a thousand times its own weight in moisture.
Here too, young skin thrives, because it produces sufficient hyaluronic acid itself. But older skin produces less and less of it. It is therefore logical that over the years the skin becomes increasingly dehydrated and therefore drier and wrinkled. That is why many moisturizing products contain hyaluronic acid, which – because it is applied to the skin – infuses especially the outer layers of the skin with moisture. This has the great advantage that the moisture in the deeper layers evaporates less quickly.
Top creams with a high dose of hyaluronic acid
➊ Vichy Aqualia Thermal Crème Riche is creamy and pampers the skin with thermal water (from €17).
➋ Hyaluronic Water from the Dutch brand NYBF puts a smoothing film on the skin (€59.95).
➌ Collistar Hyaluronic Acid Aquagel moisturizes the skin (€39.95).
Pricks against the drought
Sufficient moisture means for the skin not only suppleness, but also volume. Due to the moisture in the skin, the skin swells up, as it were, and dryness wrinkles are ‘smoothed out’. Now, of course, you cannot channel moisture into the skin. But hyaluronic acid does. In clinics for medical beauty treatments, this substance is injected into the skin.
Cosmetic doctor Dr. Helga van den Elzen about these fillers: “A subcutaneous filling with hyaluronic acid gives the skin both volume and firmness. In principle, these fillers are safe, but the effect also depends on the knowledge, skills and experience of the doctor. You are in good hands with doctors with the ZKN and NVCG quality mark.”
There are fillers that are so flexible that they can fill a fold or wrinkle, such as the filler Juvéderm Volbella. But there are also hyaluronic acid fillers that treat large surfaces, such as the cheeks. In this way, many small dryness wrinkles can be tackled in one go.
HYALURON SECRETS
Hyaluronic acid is present in our entire body. The greatest concentration is in the skin, where it attracts and retains moisture.
The production of hyaluronic acid decreases over the years. In this way, the skin becomes more dehydrated, resulting in dryness wrinkles. You can combat the natural decline in hyaluronic acid on two fronts: from the outside (with hyaluronic acid creams) and from the inside (with a dietary supplement: N-Acetyl-D-Glucosamine, or NAG).
NAG is an important component of hyaluronic acid, and it ensures that more of it can be made again. That this actually works was shown in a study in which subjects took 500 mg of NAG per day for eight weeks. The moisture in their skin had improved measurably. Tablets with a hyaluronic acid complex and collagen also seem to improve moisture levels.
special skin
Read all about how to keep your skin healthy and vital in our special!
Sources):
- Plus Magazine
