Do you know how to take care of skin in the winter? How do you avoid drying, peeling, redness or dullness? Karen Albright, president and owner of BodyLase®, shares winter tips that we bet you didn’t know!
Tracey Early’s interview Karen Albright for an In-Depth segment on Carolina’s Channel 14 News. Watch the interview here. Or check out Karen’s tips below.
Tracey: With all this recent cold weather, many of us are cranking up the heat and taking extra hot showers. But this is kind of leaving our skin dried and irritated, so how do we winterize ourselves? Karen Albright, President of BodyLase® based in Raleigh, joins me now with more. Karen, thanks for being here.Karen: Thank you for having me.
Tracey: Do you guys get this problem of people calling in with a lot of irritated skin.
Karen: A lot of people call with dried out skin. When we go inside the air is much hotter and it sucks the moisture out of our skin as well the essential oils. Even by taking hot showers we can really strip the skin of these essential oils that we need to keep our skin hydrated.
Tracey: To get it back, moisturizing skin is basically just a moisturizer or cream? What do you recommend?
Karen: Yes, if you’re using a light lotion, we recommend that you switch to a thicker, heavier cream—even an ointment-based moisturizer. Limit your showers to 5 minutes, if you can. Try to make the water lukewarm and not hot. And exfoliate, it’s important to exfoliate your skin this time of year because the dead cells will pile up and the skin can’t accept what you’re putting on.
So, you want to exfoliate the skin with something as easy as a dry brush or a scrub. And your skin will be able to better accept all the moisturizing that you’re doing to it.
Tracey: And the exfoliating and the cream you mentioned, is that something we should be doing daily, once a day, twice a day?
Karen: Yes, you can do it daily. At least once a day, possibly twice a day.
Tracey: And Karen you mentioned before this interview that it’s important to remind people to use SPF in the winter, which I always forget about.
Karen: A lot of people don’t think they have to use SPF because it’s not hot. You’re not outside at the beach, however the sun’s rays are just as dangerous in the winter as they are in the summer. The UVA and the UVB are rays are present—and mostly the UVA rays are mostly present in the winter. Those cause ageing. So you want to make sure you protect yourself against the ageing rays. It’s very important to use sunblock in the winter.
Tracey: Very good advice.
And what about the itchy scalp from those hot showers and hot blow-dryers and whatnot.
Karen: Well, try not to blow-dry your hair as much as you usually do, if you can. You can use a leave-in conditioner. If you want, you can use a home treatment such as coconut oil. Rub that into your scalp in the evening and wash it out in the morning.
Tracey: So you kind of sleep on it?
Karen: Yes!
Tracey: All this advice, we hear a lot about this for women but is this good for men as well?
Karen: Absolutely, men need to take care of their skin just as much as women do.
That’s quality advice for winterizing your skin and scalp. Do you have any winter-proofing tricks you use at home? Or have any other winter skin questions that weren’t covered here? Let us know in the comments below!
