Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter
In this post
Almost everyone notices it when winter arrives. Your hands feel rough, your lips crack, your shins itch after a shower, and your face feels tight by the evening. In summer the same skin felt fine, and you did nothing different, so the change can feel strange. The cause is not mysterious, though. Winter changes the air around you, and it changes what you do indoors, and both of those changes pull water out of your skin faster than your skin can replace it. This article explains that process in plain words: what cold air does, why heating makes it worse, which daily habits add to the problem, and which simple habits actually help.
What Winter Air Does to Your Skin
Cold air holds much less water than warm air. That is the basic fact behind dry winter skin, and once you understand it, the rest of the story makes sense. In summer, warm air carries a good amount of water vapour, and that moisture sits close to your skin. In winter, the air outside is cold, so it holds very little water. When that cold air touches your skin, water moves from where there is more of it to where there is less. Your skin has water in it, the air has very little, so water slowly leaves your skin and enters the air. You cannot see this happening, but you can feel the result after an hour outside: tight, rough, slightly uncomfortable skin.
Wind makes this worse. A still cold day dries your skin slowly, but a windy day strips moisture away much faster, because the wind keeps carrying away the thin layer of slightly warmer, slightly moister air that sits next to your skin. That is why a walk on a windy winter morning leaves your cheeks red and rough, while the same walk on a calm, cloudy day feels much kinder. Your face and hands suffer most outside because they are the parts you do not cover. A scarf helps your cheeks and chin, and gloves help your hands, not because they warm your skin, but because they slow down the flow of dry air across it.
Cold also changes the way your skin behaves. The outer layer of your skin is a thin shield made of skin cells and natural oils, a little like the wall of a house. In warm weather that shield stays flexible and holds water in easily. In cold weather the natural oils in your skin become stiffer, and the shield does not work quite as well. Small gaps open up, water escapes through them, and the surface of your skin becomes rougher. This is also why skin can feel itchy in winter. When the surface dries out, the tiny nerve endings near the surface become more sensitive, so a rough jumper or a cold breeze can set off an itch that was not there in summer.
The effect builds up over days, not minutes. One cold morning will not ruin your skin. But week after week of cold, dry air, with no change in how you look after your skin, gradually lowers the water level in the outer layer. That is why dry skin often gets worse as winter goes on, and why it feels worst in the middle of the cold season rather than at the start. Your skin is not failing. It is simply losing a slow, steady battle with dry air, and it needs a little help to keep its water in.
How Your Skin Normally Keeps Water In
To understand winter dryness, it helps to know how healthy skin keeps itself moist in the first place. Your skin is not one solid sheet. It has layers, and the outermost layer, called the stratum corneum, does most of the protective work. It is made of flat, dead skin cells packed together like bricks, with natural fats and oils filling the gaps like mortar. This brick-and-mortar wall stops water from escaping from the deeper, wetter layers of your skin, and it stops germs and dirt from getting in. When the wall is in good shape, your skin feels smooth, soft and comfortable.
Inside those skin cells there are natural substances that hold water, a little like tiny sponges. Skin specialists call them natural moisturising factors, but the idea is simple: your skin makes its own water-holding chemicals, and they keep the outer layer plump and flexible. Your skin also makes its own oils, called sebum, which spread across the surface and slow down water loss. Together, the oils, the water-holding substances and the packed cells form a working system that needs very little help in mild weather. That is why your skin feels fine in spring and autumn without much effort from you.
Winter attacks every part of that system at once. Cold air pulls water out through the wall faster than usual. The oils become less fluid and spread less evenly. The water-holding substances work less well when the skin is cold and dry. And the cells themselves can shrink slightly as they lose water, which opens up tiny gaps in the wall. Once gaps open, more water escapes, which opens the gaps further. It is a slow circle, and it explains why dry skin can feel as if it gets worse quickly once it starts. The wall is not broken in one place. It is weakened all over, a little at a time.
Age changes this picture too. Young skin usually makes plenty of oil and holds water well, so a child or a teenager may get through winter with only slightly dry hands. Older skin makes less oil, and the outer layer becomes thinner and slower to repair itself, so dryness is more common and more noticeable with age. That is a normal part of getting older, not a sign that something is wrong. It simply means older skin needs more help in winter: gentler washing, more regular moisturising, and more protection from cold wind. The same winter air affects everyone, but it affects different skin differently, and that is why two people in the same house can have very different winter skin.
Why Indoor Heating Makes It Worse
Many people are surprised to learn that being indoors in winter can dry your skin even more than being outside. The reason is heating. When you heat cold winter air, you warm it up, but you do not add any water to it. Cold air already holds very little water, and warm air can hold a lot more, so heated air ends up very dry in relative terms. Imagine a small cup of water in a large empty room. The room is the air, and the cup is the water it holds. Heating the room makes the room bigger, but the cup stays the same size, so the air feels drier. That dry, warm air then pulls water from your skin just as cold air does outside, and it does it all day long while you sit, work and sleep.
Different kinds of heating dry the air in slightly different ways, but the basic effect is the same. A gas heater, an electric heater, a wood fire and central heating all warm the air without adding moisture. A fire can feel cosy, and sitting close to it feels wonderful on a cold evening, but the hot, dry air right next to a fire is very hard on skin. People who sit close to a heater for hours often find that the side of their body nearest the heat becomes the driest and itchiest. That is not a coincidence. It is the dry heat doing its work at close range.
Sleeping in a heated bedroom is another quiet cause of winter dryness. You spend seven or eight hours in that dry air every night, and your skin loses water the whole time. You may wake up with a dry mouth, dry lips and tight skin on your face, and you may think you are simply thirsty. You probably are a little thirsty, but your skin has also spent the night in dry air. Keeping the bedroom cooler, if you can, helps. So does keeping a bowl of water near a heater or using a humidifier, which is a device that adds water vapour back into the air. You do not need a fancy device. The aim is simply to put some of the moisture back that heating took out.
There is also the simple fact that in winter you spend far more time indoors than in summer, so your skin spends far more hours in heated, dry air. In summer you move between indoors and outdoors, and the warm, moist air outside gives your skin a break. In winter, outside is cold and dry, and inside is warm and dry, so there is no break anywhere. Your skin is in dry air almost all day and all night. That is why winter dryness can feel so stubborn, and why it often does not improve until the weather changes. The answer is not to switch the heating off and freeze. It is to add moisture back into the air where you can, and to protect your skin’s outer wall so it loses water more slowly.
Hot Showers, Soap and Other Winter Habits
Winter changes how we wash, and washing is one of the biggest causes of dry skin. On a cold morning, a long hot shower feels like the best thing in the world. The heat warms you up, loosens stiff muscles and wakes you up. But hot water strips the natural oils from your skin far faster than warm water does. Those oils are part of the wall that keeps water in. Wash them away every morning with very hot water, and your skin has to rebuild its protection from scratch each day, while the dry winter air is already pulling water out of it. The result is skin that feels clean for an hour, then tight, dry and itchy for the rest of the day.
Soap adds to the problem. Ordinary soap is designed to remove oil and dirt, and it does that job well. But on skin that is already dry, strong soap removes too much of the good oil along with the dirt. The more you lather, and the more often you wash, the drier your skin becomes. Hands are the clearest example. In winter, people wash their hands often, and they wash them with hot water and strong soap, because cold and flu season makes everyone careful about germs. That care is sensible, but the skin on the hands pays for it. Hands get washed many times a day, they are out in cold air between washes, and they have very little natural oil to begin with, so they dry out first and worst.
How you dry yourself matters too. Rubbing your skin hard with a rough towel after a shower scrapes away the softened outer layer and leaves the surface rougher. Patting gently is kinder. And the minutes right after a shower are the most important of the whole day for your skin. When you step out of the shower, your skin is damp and its outer layer is soft and open. If you put moisturiser on within a few minutes, while the skin is still slightly damp, you trap some of that water in and give the outer wall a layer of oil to hold it there. If you wait half an hour, the water has already evaporated, and the moisturiser has much less to work with. This small timing habit makes a bigger difference than most people expect.
Clothing plays a part as well. Wool is warm, but a rough wool jumper worn straight against the skin can irritate dry skin and set off itching. A soft cotton layer underneath usually solves the problem. Tight clothing that rubs the same spot all day, such as a tight collar or a stiff waistband, can also irritate dry skin. None of these things cause dry skin on their own. But when your skin is already dry from cold air and heating, every extra irritation shows up more, and itching leads to scratching, which damages the outer wall further and lets out even more water. Breaking that circle is mostly about being gentle: gentler water, gentler soap, gentler drying, gentler clothes.
Why Hands, Lips and Shins Suffer Most
Dry skin does not spread evenly across the body. Some parts suffer much more than others, and there are good reasons for that. Hands come first. They are almost always uncovered, they are washed more often than any other part, and the skin on the back of the hands is thin with very few oil glands. In winter, hands go from cold air outside to hot water at the sink to dry heated air indoors, many times a day. Each change pulls a little more water out. That is why the backs of the hands become rough and red, why the skin around the nails cracks, and why knuckles sometimes split and sting. Gloves outside and moisturiser after every wash are the two habits that help hands most, and they help because they break the cycle at both ends.
Lips are a special case. The skin on your lips is thinner than anywhere else on your face, and it has no oil glands at all. That means lips cannot make their own protective oil, so they depend entirely on what you put on them and on the air around them. In winter, cold wind dries them quickly, and indoor heating dries them further. Many people lick their lips when they feel dry, which feels helpful for a second, but it makes the problem worse, because the saliva evaporates fast and takes even more moisture with it, leaving the lips drier than before. A plain lip balm, used often, works because it puts a simple oily layer over the lips and slows the water loss. The flavour and colour of the balm do not matter. The plain, oily barrier is what does the work.
Shins are another common trouble spot, and the reason is simple: the skin on the lower legs has fewer oil glands than the skin on the face or the upper body, and it is often covered by tight trousers or tights that rub against it all day. After a hot shower, the shins dry out fast, and the itch that follows is one of the most common winter complaints. Many people scratch their shins without thinking, especially in bed at night, and the scratching damages the dry surface further. Moisturising the legs after a shower, before the skin has fully dried, usually calms this down within a few days. It is not a complicated fix. It is just a matter of giving the shins the oil and water they cannot make for themselves.
The face deserves a mention too, because it is the part you see in the mirror and the part that feels the tightness most. The skin on the cheeks is often the first to feel tight in winter, because the cheeks face the wind when you walk outside. The skin around the eyes is thinner and can feel dry and look flaky. Wearing a scarf that covers the lower half of the face helps on windy days, and a gentle moisturiser in the morning gives the face a layer of protection before you step outside. None of this needs expensive products. The important thing is a simple, regular habit, not a costly cream.
What Dry Skin Feels Like and When It Is More Than Dryness
Ordinary winter dryness has a familiar pattern. The skin looks a little dull and feels rough when you run your hand over it. It feels tight after washing, especially after a hot shower. It itches, often in the evening or at night when you are warm in bed. You may see fine white flakes on dark clothing, or small dry patches on the cheeks, hands or shins. The skin may look slightly red after scratching, and the redness fades when you stop. This kind of dryness is uncomfortable, but it is common, and it usually improves within a week or two when you wash more gently, moisturise regularly and protect your skin from wind and dry heat.
There are times, though, when dry skin is a sign that something more is going on, and it is worth knowing the difference. If the skin is cracked and bleeding, if the cracks are deep and painful, if the skin is very red, swollen or warm to the touch, or if it is weeping or forming crusts, that is no longer simple dryness. The outer wall has broken down enough that germs can get in, and the skin needs more care than a shop-bought moisturiser can give. The same is true if the itching is so strong that it keeps you awake night after night, or if the dryness does not improve at all after two or three weeks of gentle care. These are signs to get advice from a health professional rather than to keep trying new creams on your own.
Some people have skin conditions that winter makes worse, and they usually know about them already. Eczema, for example, is a condition where the skin’s outer wall does not work as well as it should, and winter is its hardest season. Psoriasis is another condition that often flares in winter. If you have one of these conditions, winter dryness is not a new problem, it is a seasonal flare of an old one, and the care plan you already have is the right starting point. General information in an article like this is useful background, but it cannot replace the advice of the person who knows your skin and your history.
It is also worth saying that dry skin in winter is not a sign that you are drinking too little water, even though that idea is very common. Drinking water is good for your health in many ways, and you should drink enough through the day. But the water you drink goes to your whole body first, and only a small part of it reaches the outer layer of your skin. The dryness of the outer layer is mostly caused by the air outside your body, not by the water inside it. Drinking more water will not fix winter dryness on its own. Protecting the skin from the outside, with moisturiser and gentler washing, is what makes the real difference. Water helps, but it is not the main answer, and believing it is can leave people puzzled when they drink plenty and their skin stays dry.
Simple Daily Habits That Protect Skin in Winter
The good news about winter dryness is that the habits that help are simple, cheap and easy to fit into a normal day. The first is to wash with warm water, not hot. Warm water cleans you just as well, and it strips far less oil from your skin. Keep showers short, around five to ten minutes, and use a gentle cleanser or a mild soap, only where you actually need it. You do not need to lather your whole body every day. Arms and legs, for example, often need only water and a light wash, while the areas that sweat or get dirty need the soap. This one change alone helps many people more than any cream.
The second habit is to moisturise while the skin is still damp. After a shower, pat your skin gently with a towel so it is damp but not wet, then put moisturiser on straight away. A plain, thick cream or ointment works better in winter than a thin lotion, because it leaves a stronger oily layer on the surface. You do not need a product with a long list of promises on the label. A simple, fragrance-free cream is usually the kindest choice for dry, sensitive skin, because perfumes and strong scents can irritate it further. Apply it once or twice a day, and put extra on your hands after washing them, on your lips through the day, and on your shins after a shower.
The third habit is to protect your skin from the air. Wear gloves outside, even for a short walk to the shops, because your hands lose water fast in cold wind. Wear a scarf over the lower half of your face on windy days. Keep the heating at a comfortable level rather than very high, and if the air in your home feels very dry, put a bowl of water near a heater or use a humidifier to add a little moisture back. These steps sound small, but together they cut down the hours your skin spends in dry air, and that is what matters most.
Finally, be gentle with your skin in the ways you may not have thought about. Wear a soft layer under a rough wool jumper. Do not scratch an itch if you can avoid it; press or pat the spot instead, or put moisturiser on it. Change out of damp clothes after coming in from rain or snow, because wet fabric against the skin makes it colder and drier. And give the habits time. Dry skin that built up over weeks will not heal in a day. A week of steady, gentle care usually shows a clear improvement, and two weeks is often enough to bring the skin back to comfort. The habits are not dramatic, but they work, and they work because they deal with the real cause: water leaving the skin faster than it can be replaced.
My Take:
If someone asked me why their skin gets dry every winter, I would start with the simplest answer I know: winter air is thirsty, and your skin is the nearest drink. That sounds like a joke, but I think it is the clearest way to say it. Cold air holds very little water, heated air holds even less in the way that matters, and your skin is full of water, so water moves out of your skin into the air all day long. You do not feel it leaving. You only feel what is left behind: tight, rough, itchy skin that was perfectly fine in summer. Once you see it that way, the whole problem becomes less mysterious, and the answer becomes obvious too. You have to slow the water down, put some of it back, and stop doing the things that strip it away faster.
I think the most common mistake people make with winter skin is blaming the wrong thing. They blame their age, or their diet, or the water they drink, or some cream they bought last year. I understand why. Dry skin feels personal, as if your body is failing you. But in most cases the cause is the weather and the heating, and those affect almost everyone. I have seen people spend good money on expensive creams while still taking very hot showers twice a day and sitting next to a blazing heater every evening. The cream cannot win that fight. It is like trying to fill a bucket that has a hole in it. You have to fix the hole first, or at least make it smaller, and that means cooler water, gentler soap and less time in dry heat. The cream helps after that, not instead of it.
I also think we should be honest about how ordinary this problem is. Dry skin in winter is not a rare condition, and it is not a sign that you are doing something wrong. It is one of the most common seasonal complaints there is, in every cold country in the world. Millions of people deal with it every year, and most of them deal with it with the same simple habits. That is reassuring, I think, because it means you do not need a special treatment or a special product. You need the same things your grandmother probably did: warm water instead of hot, a plain cream after washing, gloves outside, and a scarf on a windy day. There is nothing fashionable about that advice, and that is exactly why I trust it. It has survived because it works, not because someone advertised it.
There is something else I want to say about hands, because I think hands tell the story of winter skin better than any other part of the body. Your hands work all day. They wash dishes, they open doors, they hold cold railings, they type, they cook, they clean. In winter they do all of that in cold air and hot water, over and over. It is no wonder they are the first part to crack and the slowest to heal. I think looking after your hands in winter is a form of respect for the work they do. Gloves are not a luxury. Moisturiser after washing is not vanity. They are the basic care that working hands deserve, and the people who skip them usually pay for it with cracked knuckles and stinging skin by January. A small tube of plain cream by the sink is one of the cheapest, most useful things you can own in winter.
I feel the same way about lips, though for a different reason. Lips have no oil glands, which means they cannot look after themselves at all, and yet we expect them to survive cold wind, dry rooms and hot drinks without any help. Then we lick them when they feel dry, which makes them worse, and we wonder why they keep cracking. I think the lesson of the lips is a useful one: some parts of the body need help because they were never designed to cope alone, and giving that help is not weakness. A plain lip balm is a tiny thing, but it does a real job, and using it often is better than using an expensive one once a day. The habit matters more than the product, and that is true for most of winter skin care.
I also want to be honest about what moisturiser can and cannot do, because I think the advertising around skin care makes promises that no cream can keep. A moisturiser does not feed your skin from the inside, and it does not repair deep damage overnight. What it does is much simpler and much more useful: it puts a layer of oil over the outer wall of your skin, which slows down water loss, and it softens the rough surface so it feels smoother. That is enough. It is a shield, not a medicine. If you expect it to be a medicine, you will be disappointed, and you will keep buying more expensive creams looking for a miracle. If you understand it as a shield, you will use it sensibly, you will buy a plain one, and you will spend the money you save on gloves, or on keeping the heating at a sensible level, or on nothing at all.
The question of drinking water comes up every winter, and I want to give my honest view on it. Drinking enough water is important, and I would never tell anyone to drink less. But I think it is misleading to tell people that dry skin means they are not drinking enough. The water you drink is shared by your whole body: your blood, your muscles, your organs, your brain. The outer layer of your skin gets only a small share, and it loses water to the air far faster than drinking can replace it. I have known people who drank litres of water every day and still had dry hands in winter, and they felt guilty about it, as if they were doing something wrong. They were not. The air was the problem, not their drinking. Drink water because it is good for you, not because you expect it to fix your skin, and protect your skin from the outside at the same time.
I think there is also a lesson in winter skin about patience. Dry skin builds up slowly, over weeks of cold air and dry rooms, and it heals slowly too. A single application of cream will make your skin feel better for a few hours, but it will not undo a month of dryness. You need a week or two of steady care before the skin feels properly comfortable again. I know that is not what people want to hear. We all want a quick fix, especially when our skin itches at night and keeps us awake. But the skin is a living thing, and living things repair themselves on their own timetable. The best you can do is give them the right conditions: gentle washing, regular moisture, protection from wind, and time. If you do that steadily, the skin usually does its part.
I also think it is worth saying that winter skin care is not only about comfort. It is also about keeping the skin’s wall intact so that germs and irritation cannot get through. Cracked skin is not just sore. It is open, and open skin is more likely to become infected. That is why the small habits matter even when the dryness seems mild. Moisturising your hands after washing them, wearing gloves outside, and not scratching an itch are not cosmetic habits. They are ways of keeping a working barrier in good shape, and that barrier protects you all winter. I do not say that to frighten anyone. I say it because it explains why such small, boring habits are worth doing every day, even when you feel too tired or too busy to bother.
There is one more thing I notice every winter, and it is about how we talk about skin. People often feel embarrassed by dry, flaky skin, especially on their face or hands, as if it were a sign of poor hygiene or neglect. I think that is unfair. Dry winter skin is not dirty skin. It is skin that has been in dry air, and it happens to careful, clean people just as much as to anyone else. In fact, the people who wash the most, like nurses, cooks, cleaners and parents of small children, often have the driest hands of all, because washing is part of their work. They deserve sympathy, not embarrassment, and they deserve practical help: gloves that fit, a gentle soap, and a cream that is always within reach. If you know someone whose hands are cracked in winter, the kindest thing you can do is not to comment on it, but to make sure they have what they need.
So here is my final view, in plain words. Winter dries your skin because cold air and heated air both pull water out of it, and because hot showers and strong soap strip away the oils that hold that water in. The answer is not one expensive product. It is a set of small, steady habits: warm water instead of hot, gentle soap, moisturiser while the skin is still damp, gloves and a scarf outside, and a little moisture back in the air at home. Do those things every day, give them a week or two, and most winter dryness improves. If the skin is cracked, bleeding, very red or not improving after a few weeks of gentle care, get advice from a health professional instead of trying yet another cream. And do not feel guilty about it. Winter is hard on skin, and looking after it is not vanity. It is simply giving your body the help it needs to get through the cold months in comfort.
I would also say this to anyone who is tired of fighting the same battle every winter: start earlier next year. You do not have to wait until your skin is already dry and cracked. When the first cold days arrive, start the gentle habits then, before the damage builds up. Use the plain cream, wear the gloves, turn the shower down a little. It is much easier to keep skin comfortable than to repair it once it is sore, and the habits are so small that starting them early costs you almost nothing. Winter will come every year, and your skin will face the same dry air every year. The people who suffer least are usually not the people with the best creams. They are the people who started the simple habits early and kept them going, day after day, without making a fuss about it.
One last thought, and it is about kindness to yourself. Winter is a hard season in many ways. The days are short, the air is cold, and everything takes a little more effort. Dry skin is one more small hardship on top of all the others, and it is easy to ignore it until it becomes painful. I think it is worth treating it as a signal, not just a nuisance. Your skin is telling you that the air is dry and that it needs a little help. Listen to it early, give it that help, and you will be more comfortable for the whole winter. That is not a grand piece of advice. It is a small, practical one, and in my experience the small, practical ones are the ones that actually make life better.
I also think it helps to keep the routine simple enough that you will actually do it every day. A long list of products and steps looks impressive, but most people give up on it after a week. A short routine survives: warm water, gentle soap, a plain cream after washing, gloves by the door, and a scarf on windy days. Keep the cream where you can see it, next to the sink or on the bedside table, because a cream hidden in a cupboard is a cream you will forget. If the cream runs out, buy the same plain kind again instead of searching for a better one. Your skin does not need novelty. It needs the same kind care, repeated day after day, and that quiet repetition is what brings it back to comfort.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter” really mean?
It means asking why skin that feels fine in summer becomes rough, tight and itchy in the cold months. The main reason is that cold air holds very little moisture, and indoor heating makes the air inside even drier, so water leaves the outer layer of your skin faster than your skin can replace it. Hot showers, strong soap and wind add to the problem by stripping away the natural oils that normally hold water in.
Why do so many people search for “Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter”?
People search for it because it is one of the most common winter complaints, and it affects almost everyone to some degree. Hands crack, lips split, shins itch and faces feel tight, and people want to know whether it is normal and what actually helps. It is also a problem that returns every year, so people look for a clear explanation and for habits that work, rather than for yet another expensive cream.
How long does the feeling behind “Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter” usually last?
Ordinary winter dryness lasts as long as the cold, dry weather lasts, but it usually improves within one to two weeks of steady gentle care. Washing with warm water instead of hot, using a mild soap, and putting moisturiser on while the skin is still damp after a shower often brings clear relief within a few days. If it does not improve after two or three weeks of gentle care, or if the skin is cracked and bleeding, it is worth getting advice from a health professional.
What makes “Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter” feel stronger on some days?
Windy days make it worse, because wind carries moisture away from the skin faster than still air. Long hot showers, strong soap and sitting close to a heater also make it worse, because they strip the skin’s natural oils and dry the air further. Cold, dry nights in a heated bedroom can leave skin feeling tight by morning, and scratching an itch damages the skin’s surface and lets out even more water, which makes the dryness worse the next day.
Can daily habits change anything about “Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter”?
Yes, daily habits make the biggest difference. Short, warm showers instead of long, hot ones, a gentle cleanser, moisturiser applied while the skin is still damp, gloves and a scarf outside, and a cooler bedroom or a little extra moisture in the air at home all slow down water loss. These habits do not cure winter dryness in a day, but kept up steadily for a week or two, they usually bring the skin back to comfort.
When should I pay closer attention to “Why Does Skin Get Dry in Winter”?
Pay closer attention if the skin is cracked and bleeding, very red, swollen or warm to the touch, weeping or forming crusts, or if the itching keeps you awake night after night. Also get advice if the dryness does not improve after two or three weeks of gentle care, or if you have a skin condition such as eczema that flares badly in winter. These signs mean the skin’s protective wall has broken down more than simple dryness, and it needs more care than a shop-bought moisturiser alone.
