3 Easy But Essential Winter Hydrating Care Tips

January and February bring extra cold temperatures outside driving us inside to the dry heated air. Both wreak havoc on our skin, nails, and lips. We are now paying the price of having tossed aside healthy diets for holiday indulgences. We have more skin breakouts and vitamin deficiencies to further the problem. So, let’s start back into some healthy winter self-care habits to bring essential hydration and healing back into our bodies. These are areas everyone can work on even while quarantined for COVID19. Use these 3 easy essential care tips to bring the extra hydration our skin needs in the winter months.

Tip #1 – Hands

To start off, our hands are the most useful tools our body has. We utilize them with every task we perform from the time we get up to the time we go to bed. Hands suffer much abuse daily as they do a variety of functions. Washing, sanitizing continually, and harsh winter conditions dry our hands out at a much faster rate. Chapped hands are no fun. Have you ever broke a nail down into the quick or had torn cuticles? Ouch! Your immediate attention goes right to the source of the pain. It is amazing how some tiny little cuticle can cause so much grief. Thankfully, our hands are pretty sturdy to put up with most of the abuse we put on them daily. However, one way to help our hands is to use lotion.

First, make it your automatic response to apply lotion after every hand washing or sanitizing. My favorite lotion right now is Bath & Body Works’ Stress Relief Eucalyptus + Spearmint. Use warm, not hot water to wash your hands in. Hot water dehydrates your skin faster. Hand sanitizers are largely alcohol-based products. They dry out any remaining moisture you might have retained after hand washing. Replace some of the moisture lost in your hands, nails, and cuticles with a great lotion.

Do not neglect your nails and cuticles when you apply lotions or oils. At night when all the handwashing for the day is done, take some Coconut or Vitamin E oil and massage directly onto your nails and cuticles. Leftover oil can be applied to the areas of your hands that may be chapped. Add in Lavender essential oil to bring additional healing properties. Now on to our feet.

Tip #2 – Feet

I learned a neat little fact this week. One-fourth of all the bones in our body are in our feet. There are 26 bones in each foot totaling 52 for both plus 30 joints. That is enough for me to pay a little more attention to my feet. Tired, achy feet sure make you miserable. Our bones can be indicators of wet weather on its way. It doesn’t matter if that precipitation is snow or rain our bones let us know. Winter snow and ice don’t do much to make feet comfortable either! This winter let’s choose to take some of the extra time indoors at home to promote healthy feet with warm soaks, lotion, and essential oils.

A good way to relieve the aches and pains of damp cold weather is a good old soak in a warm Epsom salts bath. Just soak your feet in warm water with about a half to a whole cup of Epsom salts. Then, use a pumice stone to remove calluses and dead skin. Third, be sure to apply a rich lotion right after drying off. Next, trim nails straight across. This helps prevent ingrown toenails. Lastly, take some Coconut or Vitamin E oil and massage into each foot. I add a few drops of Tea Tree or Lavender essential oil. Therapeutic grades of either of these oils bring strong antifungal properties that can keep fungal infections at bay. Lastly, let’s address the lips.

Tip #3 – Lips

With all the mask-wearing that I have been doing lately, I have forgone wearing lipstick as much, therefore my lips are much dryer. Without wearing lipstick, it keeps the inside of the mask cleaner and doesn’t spread the lipstick color where I do not want it. The crime of this omission is my lips are not as moisturized and are getting chapped. Chapped lips are most irritating and quite painful when eating if they are cracked or bleeding. I now take a minute to use a soft emollient lip balm without color to keep them healthy.

Here is the routine I use to keep my lips healthy in the winter. First, take some sugar to gently remove dead skin first. Next, apply Coconut oil and let it be absorbed completely. Finally, start each day with a good lip balm that tastes good and glides across the lip. I like EOS lip balms the best. Don’t use hard waxy chapsticks that pull and tug on chapped lips. Whether you are wearing a mask or not, keep your lips in tip-top kissable shape.

The solution is to apply lotion, lotion, lotion. Lotion is your skin’s best friend in the winter months. Though not all lotions are created equal, some lotion is better than no lotion. In addition to lotion, use Coconut and Vitamin E oil with Tea Tree and/or Lavender for added healing benefits. These 3 easy hydrating tips are essential for healthy hands, nails, feet, and lips this winter. Season’s Greetings Ladies! Stay warm and well!