This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at St. Andrews chapter.
By Amelia Summers
It’s a new year and inevitably a new semester, which can only mean one thing: back to the cold. As you walk through the double sliding doors at the airport and out into an ungodly fridged temperature after Christmas holiday, you are quickly reminded that you must resort back to your winter weather skin routine. Here are a few products that will keep you skin feeling moisturized and perfected all winter. Bring on the below-0 dry wind!
- Exfoliate. One of the worst feelings is having your skin feel itchy and peely. Use a gentle exfoliator on your face and neck once a week throughout the winter months to remove the dead skin cells and to give your skin a clean and smooth texture that will enable your pores to actually absorb and take full advantage of the benefits of your moisturizing creams and potions. Peter Thomas Roth has great exfoliant cleansers that brighten your natural complexion, have anti-aging ingredients, and remove dead skin sitting on top of your pores. You can even go above and beyond by using a electric cleansing brush with your exfoliating cleansing gel. For less expensive versions of this routine try No7 exfoliator cleansing gels and a rubber pore cleansing pad available at Sephora.
- Cleanse with moisture. The worst feeling in the winter is when you strip your skin of all its natural oils and you are left with dry, peely skin. Avoid this by cleansing with natural cleansing oils. They will remove makeup, lift the dirt and unwanted oils from your pores, and leave your skin feeling clean, but hydrated. Almost every skincare line has some cleansing oil these days, but my favorite is the Josie Maran Aragan Cleansing Oil. This stuff is magic.
- Hydrate and Protect. Your skin is prepped and ready, but you don’t want to start slapping on the makeup without hydrating your skin with moisture that will last 12-14 hours. Apply your usual under-eye anti-aging routine and use a moisturizer that will penetrate your skin and hydrate from the inside out all day long. Everyone’s skin reacts differently to moisturizer, but I find everything from La Roche-Posay to Eucerin has something in its line for everyone. Play around and find a moisturizer that you can fall in love with. It makes such a difference in how your makeup will hold up throughout the day. Don’t forget to hydrate with a thicker cream or oil under your eyes and apply sunscreen!
- Prime. Your makeup won’t be slipping and sliding from sweat in the winter, but if you haven’t noticed, winter skin routines are about layering products that will protect and hydrate your skin. Primer does this to some extent, but it also makes sure the wind and rain will not affect your makeup. You will be bulletproof all day! If you are running late, most primer blends and blurs all on its own, so grab your coffee and get out the door at this step if you need to!
- If you have more time, now you can get out your foundation. I find that in the winter, most people go for full-coverage foundation. The problem is that this can wind up looking cakey in the worst way possible, and the air is unforgiving to cakey foundation in the winter. So play with foundations and find combinations that work for you. I usually have 3-5 concealers and foundations blended at once so that the moisture and coverage equalizes. In the winter, its also flattering to use a lighter concealer as highlighter, giving you that reflection whilst still looking well blended and dewy. Using a Matte foundation is the worst culprit for cakey skin, so use sparingly and rehydrate with thermal spring water spray during application – it makes all the difference. If you really want to use Matte foundation make sure that you are using really hydrating concealers under your eyes and as highlighters to balance out the flatness of matte with the reflection of highlighter and hydration.
- Reapply and reblend. In the afternoon, instead of applying powder, try and reblend some the skin coverage products you used in the morning to cover the shine. Don’t forget to take off any excessive oiliness with oil-blotting paper and then reblend your coverage products. Nothing dehydrates and takes the cakiness to 150% like powder, so forgo the powder and stay dewy. Also, before and after reapplying, don’t forget to spritz a little more thermal spring water for hydration. Your pores may be producing natural oil, but that doesn’t mean that your skin is hydrated.
Hear’s to your dewy, hydrated winter skin! Good luck ladies!