Are any of you wondering why it seems like your moisturizer isn’t working as well as it used to? You’re not alone. Every year around this time people come to me complaining that their moisturizer just doesn’t seem to be as powerful as it used to be. “Aha!,” I’ve exclaimed, in the nicest way possible of course, “It is not your moisturizer! It’s just winter.” It’s true that people experience increased dry skin in the winter. But this year I decided to do a little more digging to find out exactly why. As it turns out, there is startlingly little scientifically sound explanation to be found, and myths abound.  As is often the case, it falls to us to sift through the nonsense and make some sense of this issue.

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First, let’s dispell the myths:

When weather gets cold, it gets dry. This is claimed so often and by so many “reputable sources” that I almost took it at face value myself. But when I decided to double check this pervasive claim, it completely fell apart. I looked at historical charts of humidity levels across the United States throughout the seasons.* It turns out that humidity levels show no particular trend from summer to winter. In fact, in many cities, even Northern cities, humidity levels are higher in the freeze of winter than in the bask of summer.

The winter is blustery and wind dries out the skin. Many of us can recall experiencing our share of cold, windy winter days, and could swear that we experience “windburn”, characterized by dryness, redness, and irritation after being outside on these blustery days. But a look at the evidence forces us to consider other possible causes. The only experiment I could find was performed all the way back to 1937, and was published in Popular Science. Scientists founds through using a wind tunnel that wind alone does not create “reddening or chapping” of the skin. Furthermore, upon browsing through historical wind speed charts, I found that that much like humidity levels, wind speeds show no yearly trend. There is no evidence of higher winds in the winter months. Regardless of all this evidence against the wind creating redness, dryness, and irritation, many sources not only talk about the existence of windburn, but will even explain why it occurs. The most widely used explanation is that wind removes surface lipids (oils) from the skin. Exactly how the wind performs this feat is conspicuously absent from all of these articles. Furthermore, if wind is just as strong in the summer, why don’t people seem to experience windburn as much in the summer? Another common explanation that attempts to explain windburn, which is the current explanation on Wikipedia, is that windburn is actually just sunburn caused by the wind removing surface lipids (oils) which help protect us from UV rays (another claim I am yet to find evidence to support). While the wind can remove some of these surface lipids year round, they say, the removal of the surface lipids in the winter coincides with a season when we do not protect our skin as valiantly from the sun. Thus the redness and irritation people experience is simply a sunburn. This explanation is incomplete at best, and completely misinformed at worst. Yet another explanation, albeit less frequently posited, claims that wind removes sweat, which normally helps filter UV rays. Again, how sweat helps filter UV rays is conspicuously absent.

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Whew. So, now that we have gone through the myths, the fact remains that many people experience dryer skin in the winter. Why? After looking at all of the available evidence, I have a hunch it can be attributed almost entirely to:

Artificial heat: Mother nature can heat up or cool down the great outdoors while keeping humidity levels steady, but when we heat indoor areas, this lowers humidity. When you look at the science of relative humidity (I won’t bore you), this is how it works. For an everyday example, notice how when you heat your bathroom while taking a shower there is less steam in the air. Since most of us live and work in artificially heated indoor environments in the winter, it’s likely we experience long-term exposure to lower humidity environments during the winter months. This dries out the skin, causing many of us to wonder why our moisturizer isn’t working as well as it used to. Back to my original point, “It’s not your moisturizer!” And introducing my new, improved answer, “You’re living in lower humidity indoor environments in the winter!”

And what about the cold? Strangely, none of the authors or reporters writing about winter and dry skin mention the effect cold air itself has on the skin. However, I have a hunch extreme temperatures may figure into a complete explanation of why some people experience dry skin in the winter. When we expose our skin to freezing temperatures, the skin reacts through natural protective methods, most prominently by withdrawing blood from the surface of the skin to protect core temperature. This is the first step which ultimately leads to the skin freezing which causes frost bite and cell death. My hunch is that perhaps even during shorter duration exposure to freezing temperatures which people sometimes experience on cold days, the skin still reacts through a more mild form of cell death. This mild cell death, while not as apparent as the blisters caused by frostbite, is evidenced by flakiness or dryness as the dead cells flake off. The redness experienced by many people after exposure to winter weather, while it would require further research for me to be more definitive, could be the result of cell death or simply the body returning blood to areas where it has been withdrawn.

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So, what can we do about it?

1.  Humidify your home/workplace. Install a humidifying system into your central heat. Alternately, if you use wood burning stoves or kerosene heaters, you can place pots of water on top and let the water evaporate, then repeat. You can always boil a large pot of  water on the stovetop as well, being careful to keep a close eye on it of course. There are commercially available electric stand-alone humidifiers as well. 60% humidity is a good general goal to shoot for. You can measure humidity with widely available humidity measuring devices which are available at most hardware stores, or you can be more relaxed about it and just notice how you–and your skin–feel. When the humidity reaches a comfortable level you will feel less dry and generally more comfortable. You should also notice less static electricity, less shocks, and less frizz to your hair. An easy way to tell if you’ve gone too far and over-humidified your space is if your windows start to pool water at their bases.

Perk: Adequately humidified air feels warmer than dry air at the same temperature. In other words, you can get away with heating to a lower temperature.

2.  Use more moisturizer: An extra pump or two of moisturizer each time you apply should help.

3.  Add jojoba oil: Since jojoba oil does not evaporate, 5-6 drops of jojoba oil added into your moisturizer each time you apply it will provide a boost of all-day moisture support.

*Yes, I know. There is more to the world than the United States, but…well, okay fine, I have no excuse. I’ll make a note to look outside the U.S. for my next research-related blog. :-)

Brandy let me know that a bunch of people are asking her what’s up with the new products. Here’s a quick update:

New and Improved Moisturizer: I got a new sample with the addition of twice the jojoba (10%) and lichochalcone (powerful anti-inflammatory, imparts yellow color). We removed stearic acid and are in the process of switching out the preservatives (to reduce any possible sting). I tried the latest sample and it is great, but I wouldn’t mind it being even more moisturizing. Therefore, we are adding an extra humectant (perhaps MP Diol) and I will try that sample soon. RELEASE DATE: Several months away. COST: Hopefully the same.

SPF Moisturizer: I tried another sample of a zinc oxide based SPF. We may be between a rock and a hard place with the SPF. I am committed to zinc oxide for its broad spectrum support, but it goes on white, and can sometimes leave the skin feeling a bit tight. I asked them to bump up the humectants again, and add more jojoba to the mix. They’ll resample me on this soon. RELEASE DATE: Your guess is as good as mine. COST: The same as the non-SPF moisturizer.

Salicylic Acid: Stability testing will be completed in early November. If it passes, we’ll print labels and put it into production at that time. RELEASE DATE: A couple/few months. PRICE: Probably about the same as the benzoyl peroxide, perhaps a bit more.

10% Glycolic: I sent out a bunch of samples to the moderators. If they approve of it, I’ll put it into production. I am in love with it. RELEASE DATE: A few months. PRICE: Probably about the same as the moisturizer.

Organic Jojoba Oil: Our testers are liking it and so am I. I am getting clear bottle samples in the mail hopefully early this week, and I’m trying to finalize what kind of cap they should have. RELEASE DATE: A few months. PRICE: Organic Jojoba is very expensive but as always I will try to keep the price as low as I possibly can.

Also, we are going to small/medium/large for all of our products. Everything will now be in 2oz. (trial and travel size), 8oz. (medium size), and 16oz. (bulk size). Acne.org will be much more open in the future to different people’s regimens, so having small/medium/large will allow everyone to mix and match as needed for whichever regimen they choose. The products will all be in curved bottles instead of tubes, and have really cool looking new packaging that Paul, Kent, Joel and I have been working on. I hope you like the new look. I promise I’ll try to stick with this look for a while. :)

OK, so this stuff is pretty awesome. Except it stings.

The awesome part: goes on very nicely, spreads evenly, absorbs quickly, leaves no residue, matte finish which is very hard to find in an SPF, zinc oxide based which may actually be good for acne.

The stings part: upon application I get a warming/stinging sensation which can last for up to two hours or so. I am relatively certain this is due to one of the sunscreen ingredients.

Bottom line: this is the best sunscreen I have tried to date aside from the stinging. I am going to discuss this issue with our manufacturer and see if we can improve upon it.

The moisturizer is being shipped on schedule tomorrow. Our manufacturer, being the super sticklers that they are, demand that I wait until Tuesday so they can get the results of the final assay before we put it up for sale. That means they want to triple check that it is exactly perfect now that the bottles are filled. I respect their attention to detail. So as long as Joel and I can get the shopping cart nailed by next Tuesday we should be ready to go.

Our manufacturer has the bottles and has made the “bulk” they call it. The “bulk” means they’ve made the product in large quantities and just need to fill the bottles up. They’re hoping to get to that on Friday or early next week and ship it to our distributor on July 20. Then we’ll just need to give our distributor a few days to get it up and running and we’ll be good to go I hope.

As usual, I am not promising anything because you never know what can happen, but I wanted to keep you guys updated. This is everything I know. I’m excited!

I’ve been getting lots of great feedback on the moisturizer, plus I am personally elated at how they managed to make my dream moisturizer a reality. So we’re all systems go.

Now I’ll get them working on an SPF15 version.