Here's How To Have Moist, Beautiful Skin All Winter Long

1. Adjust your bathing habits. Take shorter tub baths or showers and use tepid water. If you feel comfortable doing so, every second "bath" apply soap only to your armpits, bottom, hands and feet. Dry off gently, patting the skin dry in order to retain as much natural moisture as possible. Bathing does not contribute to the skin's dryness as long as you limit the use of soap and lubricate your skin immediately afterwards. After each bath or shower, replace lost moisture with a good body lotion. If dry spots develop throughout the day, apply body lotion in these areas again. (I'm working on a Coca Butter Lotion that will be great for this purpose. Look for it soon.)

Note: For serious dry skin patches on the body try a hydrocortisone cream. (You can buy it over the counter.) The Oleda® Wrinkle-Smooth Night Cream will also help with very dry and reddish skin patches. (See this product in "Skin Care," www.oleda.com.)

2. The skin on your face is the thinnest on the body. The winter months are devastating to this delicate area because of lost moisture in the air, both inside and outside the house. The older the skin, the thinner and dryer it can be and the more it will need protection and moisture. (This is nothing new to me as I have always had dry skin and have had to compensate for it all my life.)

When you cleanse your face, don't use soap or any cleanser that depletes even more moisture and nutrients from your skin. This fragile area needs to form a clear defense against winter damage. If you don't have a good cleanser already, take a look at two Oleda® products: Liquefying Makeup Remover and Enriched Foaming Cleanser.

Moisturizing the face and neck is most important, both morning and night. The loss of moisture causes the fine lines and wrinkles to become more obvious during winter months, and more difficult to get rid of each year.

To prevent fine facial lines and wrinkles from appearing, a moisturizer cream with a high moisture level and filled with nutrients will help prevent the "buildup" of these fine lines. In the morning, apply it under your makeup; if you are not wearing makeup that day, apply the moisturizer cream anyway. My Nutritive Day Cream or Vitamin C Cream are both great for this problem. At night, after cleansing and using astringent, I always apply my Wrinkle-Smooth Night Cream, winter or summer. I even use a lightly applied layer under my makeup during cold weather, using a dry washcloth to remove the excess (a tissue won't work on such a rich product). This works wonders to add and retain the necessary moisture needed in order to help keep fine lines from developing and aging my skin.

If your Skin Itches because dry air is causing the moisture in the top layer of the skin to evaporate quickly, rub Wrinkle-Smooth Night Cream on those spots. You'll be relieved in a few hours.

Do You Have Flaking Skin? During winter, often there are thousands of dry skin cells that are ready to be sloughed off the surface because they have become clumped together with oil, forming flakes. Lightly remove them with a washcloth or loofah and apply Wrinkle-Smooth Night Cream over the area.

3. Dry winter hands may be helped or even prevented by applying a hand moisture barrier before exposure to the cold and dry winter air. Our Hand Barrier Block does just that. It provides an invisible shield that protects the skin better than ever. The humectants, collagen and elastin, in this product provide moisture, while the invisible shield helps hold it in.

Throw our Hand Beautifier Cream into your handbag. It's a soothing, nutrient-rich cream that will keep your hands looking and feeling moist, soft and smooth.

4. Itching and Flaking Scalp. Even our scalp can't escape the hazards of the winter cold. It, too, can become 30% to 100% more dry, itchy and flaky. Use a gentle cleansing shampoo followed by a good conditioner formulated for the scalp and hair to prevent dryness and flaking. Allowing your scalp to become dry and flaky creates a condition for the development of dandruff and/or irritated skin of the scalp.

Apply a gentle shampoo and massage it into the scalp to get rid of the oils and flaky skin that can cake up and cause dandruff. The Oleda® Jojoba Shampoo followed by Spotlight Conditioner is excellent for the winter scalp. You might want to switch to another one of our shampoos in the summer, depending on your hair type. The Spotlight Conditioner awakens tired, dull winter hair and renders it shiny and healthy looking. (If you have a serious dandruff problem you will need a serious dandruff shampoo.)

5. Don't forget that what you eat or drink (or don't eat or drink) has much to do with the moisture in your skin, hair and body. Drink plenty of water or juice each day. This helps compensate for the lost moisture in general. Dry skin can also be compensated for with good nutrition. Eating a balanced diet will help. Also take a look at our Skin Helpers Vitamin in "Skin Care."

This seems like a lot to do to protect yourself from Old Mother Nature, but once you get into the routine it becomes easy, and it's worth it to have that beautiful, healthy skin and hair year after year.

I do not know of another anti-wrinkle night cream containing so many moisturizers and emollients. There is not a single drop of water in this formula so that there's no evaporation during the night. You wake up and the night cream is still doing it's job. 1 OZ $18.50

Wrinkle-Smooth Night Cream