I’m a freak about this, and I get compliments on the skin all the time. First of all, drink tons of water. Your skin will feel and look better and even your lips won’t chap. I use a body scrub and body butter. I’m partial to Archipelago Botanicals’ Pomegrante Body Scruband Body Butterbecause they have oils infused into them.
I only pat dry when I get out of the shower. Don’t dry off completely. Leave some water on the skin and then use lotion (or, if you’re lazy, just smooth on some baby oil). Baby oil/vaseline won’t moisturize, it’ll only help retain moisture.
If you don’t have the money for a scrub or you need to save, use honey and mix either sea salt (stronger) or brown sugar (milder) into it in a cup. After you soap and rinse in the shower, use this to scrub yourself down and then rinse it off with warm (not hot) water. I like to follow up my showers with Johnson’s Baby Oil Gel. It comes in chamomille and lavender, and a little goes a long way. If you put it on after the shower when you’re still slightly damp and just fresh from an exfoliation, your skin has the most amazing sheen.
I’ve used this both after showering and in the bath, and it was what I was planning to recommend. My legs get horrible in the winter, but taking a bath with bath oil for a couple days in a row really seems to sort me out. Beyond that, I use Cetaphil lotion (it seems to soak in faster) and mostly try to stay out of the cold. Finally, lots of water helps, and I notice huge a difference when I’m eating better.
Or you could get a Pyrex dish or measuring up, set it on your radiator, and put the lotion bottle in it.
This is a really good point that most people forget: oils don’t moisturize, oils help prevent the water in your skin from evaporating so quickly. Moisture = water, not oil. No matter what moisturizer/lotion/oil/scrub you use, using it while your skin is wet will make it work much better.
I’m a big fan of salt/sugar scrubs for exfoliating, and if you make them with oil, they’re excellent for holding in water, too. Take a bunch of sea salt, epsom salts or table sugar and fill a used yogurt container about 2/3 full. Pour over the oil of your choice until you have a layer of oil on top of the salt/sugar. My favorite oil is equal parts canola and grapeseed, with a little rose hip seed oil if the skin is red as well as dry. Add up to 20 drops of essential oils of your choice, if you like - lavender and chamomile are healing to the skin as well as yummy smelling, but most companies just put in enough to justify it on their labels, not enough to be therapeutic. 20 drops in 1 cup of salt scrub is a therapeutic amount.
Mix and cover until you shower. When you’re all wet, scoop up a handful of goo and gently rub it on your skin. Be careful! The tub will get slippery! Rub as long as it feels good, and then rinse. Since you’re doing this in the water, lots of the water will get stuck on your skin under the oil - this is a good, good thing.
The scrub should last a good 3-6 months if you keep it covered in the corner of your shower. Just stir it up again before you use it.
This sounds interesting, given that New England is terribly dry during the winter. What ratio of oatmeal to yoghurt do you suggest for making this? Aproximately how long does it take for it to dry?
This is similar to Amlactin, which is what I use. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that I abused the Hell out of my skin. Within a short time of using it my skin was at a level where it could be maintained. My understanding is that it basically removes the crappy skin to reveal healthier skin underneath. It stings badly if you use it on open or very irritated skin, but it doesn’t sting normally. It’s pretty much been a miracle and I get lots of compliments on my skin now. It’s a little bit on the pricey side, but for me it was worth it; especially since I use it on my face too. It damn near is a miracle lotion for me.
Also, drink lots of water and consider taking fish oil.
Sorry, people, but drinking water has no effect on your skin, besides helping your lips to not get chapped. You can’t hydrate your skin from the inside.
All people in latitudes north of about San Francisco should take fish oil all winter to make up for our Vitamin D deficiencies from the lack of sunlight (remember your mom making you take cod liver oil as a kid? ).
for those of you using an oil wash or have an oily soap mix, try keeping a small bottle of dish soap in the bathroom.
when you are done in the shower or tub, drip a few drops into the water, or onto the floor. it will help keep the tub, shower floor, pipes, etc. cleaner and help cut down the icky slippery buildup.
also a very hot water/vinegar mix poured down helps keep the oil build up down.
i found that if i do this i don’t have to call the plummer as often.
if you really can’t take the lotion, try using hair creme rinse. you can use it all over and it helps lock moisture in your skin.
soap up. rinse off. creme rinse up. rinse off. pat dry. good to go!
Now that’s a question. I’ve never thought about it in that way - if you take, probably a cup or so of oatmeal, and mix with yoghurt until it’s about the consistency of porridge. Leave the oatmeal to soak for 15 minutes or so, and then rub yourself down with it. It takes maybe 5 minutes to dry.
Sour milk products are also very good for the hair, and will help stop your scalp itching.
Well, I was hoping you’d show up in this thread given your profession, but I didn’t think it would be to shoot down my advice. That’s interesting, I’ve always been taught that skin drying out is one of the symptoms of dehydration.
I’d recommend Vitamin D for just about anyone (it’s pretty cheap), but especially for the group you mention. I think it would probably be good for the segment of Dopers who don’t get much sunlight to look into it as well. I personally think regular fish oil should be taken over cod liver oil as cod liver oil has large amounts of Vitamin A as well as D, and as a result it is easier for hypervitaminosis A to occur. This holds doubly true for women of a birthing age.
I know that thanks to the advice on the Dope I’ve sorted out my nasty hands with Hemp hand cream and hand scrub from the Body Shop.
Now, before I go to work I put on the cream, and when I get back home I use the scrub, rinse it off, put on more of the cream and a pair of cotton gloves and sit for an hour.
Seriously magic stuff, and if it can sort out hands that every 5 mins are covered with antibac hand wash or coated in alcohol handrub, it can sort out simple cold weather hands!
BTW clinical signs of severe dehydration are increased skin laxity and dry mucous membranes, flaky skin isn’t a feature.
I did stop taking my fish oil supplement because it made my face break out, so fish oil is probably a good thing if you have dry skin.
Ah, I see. So saying dehydration causes dry skin is an incorrect and simplified over-generalization? Also, does this mean that the drinking of water does nothing for the new skin cells being formed underneath?
Oh my God, isn’t that stuff the best? At some point, we couldn’t get it here in the US, so a flight attendant friend of ours brought some back from the UK. It is a miracle- I recommended it to several nurses, who had the same experience as you did.
Doing some rough math, it looks like my one glass of skimmed milk, one glass of soya milk, and two capsules of regular cod liver oil puts me at less than half the recommended amount of Vitamin A for an adult per day.
Skimmed milk - 10% RDA
Soya milk - 10% RDA
Cod liver oil capsule - 375 micrograms each
Assuming the 10% figure is based on the recommended amount of 3000 micrograms of vitamin A per day, that puts me at:
300 plus
300 plus
375 plus
375
for a total of 1350 micrograms per day. Add in my occasional sources of Vitamin A (broccoli, cheese, peas, carrots, etc.), and I’m probably still under or at just the right amount. I don’t think hypervitaminosis A is too big a worry in North America (except for Inuit eating polar bear or husky livers).
Fair enough. I recommend fish oil along with a multivitamin, which could possibly up the Vitamin A intake noticeably. The RDA for Vitamin A for women is 2,333 IU (or 700 mcg). The UL (tolerable upper intake level - the maximum dose that is likely to pose no adverse effects) of preformed Vitamin A is at 10,000 IU (or 3,000 mcg). Douglas Labs Ultra Preventive X, a popular and generally well-regarded multivitamin, has 5,000 IU (1,500 mcg) of preformed Vitamin A in 1 serving size. This means that if you are taking this multi you are over the RDA before ever touching cod liver oil, and with the sample diet you have listed you are approaching the UL. Even without the multi, you are going above the RDA (which in of itself may not necessarily be bad, but it is certainly not being conservative). The RDA for men is 3,000 IU of Vitamin A, whereas 3,000 mcg is the UL. Many people feel you can go over the RDA (with many vitamins, not just A), and you will often find quality multivitamins give more than the RDA in their servings for various reasons. You could likely go up to the UL, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable going much further past that. Admittedly, at this dosage it would have to be a continual, daily choice over a substantial period of time to ingest enough Vitamin A to get to chronic toxicity; it would take large amounts at once to have an acute level of poisoning.
Additionally, there are concerns about cod liver oil containing contaminants as the liver filters stuff (i.e. mercury) and cod are omnivorous, which means they will be eating other fish thereby increasing their contaminant content. Contaminants are less likely to occur when you are taking the oils from the tissue of the fish, such as in fish oil. I imagine you wouldn’t need to worry too much about that if it is coming from a reputable company, but it is a good idea to be aware of that. In terms of EPA/DHA ratios I have also seen more cod liver oils maintaining an improper ratio than regular fish oil, but that may be attributed to my limited exposure cod liver oils. I believe cod liver oil can also become rancid easier than fish oil as well, but I am not certain on that point.
For those reasons, I recommend supplementing Vitamin D individually if needed, taking fish oil, and taking a multivitamin (with the majority, if not all, of the Vitamin A coming in a pro-Vitamin A form) as a general piece of advice. Things get trickier if someone has specialized deficiencies or conditions. Don’t be worried about reaching hypervitaminosis A by eating carrots and other vegetables, those contain carotenoids, a percentage of which are a precursor to Vitamin A. The human body creates Vitamin A from those vegetable sources as it is needed, as opposed to the preformed Vitamin A which is immediately absorbed. Hence the danger in preformed Vitamin A (and by proxy - cod liver oil), it is fat soluble and can build up over time. The only danger from beta-carotene in plant form is a yellow or orange tint that your skin may adopt temporarily until you stop eating so many veggies. So cod liver oil in itself isn’t the wrong choice or anything, I just thought fish oil (with a Vitamin D supplement) offered more benefits. Just my understanding on it all, if I am mistaken I would appreciate someone correcting me.
On a sidenote: It looks like some people recommend slightly more than the normal female RDA for pregnant women. Since too much Vitamin A can result in birth defects, though, I would tread carefully. Also, I have seen some claims that chronic Vitamin A toxicity can display dry, itchy skin as a symptom; so that’s something to tie this tangent into the original thread.
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