Budget tips for dehydrated skin n

[JasperDamerel]

My usual routine is cleanse with avocado oil and/or honey, acid toner, rose water and glycerine spray, Superdrug Pure serum and moisturiser/rose hip oil.

This is no longer doing the trick, and my skin feels really tight and sensitive and is starting to crack slightly. Please tweak my routine, and give me general lifestyle suggestions that might help.

I love Aveeno cream. NOT the lotion but the cream with Colloidal Oats (or some such). It's very hydrating, not greasy, and makes my skin feel "cushiony" and "fatter" as it were. Always on offer somewhere (now at Superdrug). Really good.

Eat more avocado? Sounds like you might not get enough good fats in your diet.

Bepanthan (baby bum cream) applied thinly before bed is wonderful for damaged skin, e.g. sunburn, wind burn, dryness.

Do you drink enough? I recently gave up alcohol and the difference its made to my skin has been nothing short of miraculous.
Also have you ruled out any underlying health issues that may be affecting your skin?
Cracking doesn't sound too good. Have you suffered from eczema?

I may be way off the mark here, but have you maybe got too much going on your skin? Would it be worth simplifying and see if it helped? So for example, wash face with water, apply Nivea blue pot. That's it. Could be worth a go?

If it's to do with vitamins then berroca is great for a quick boost.

Hyaluronic acid will add moisture. Try hada labo hyaluronic lotion - you'll have to buy online but a bottle will last you a year. It has saved my skin this winter.

When I was pregnant I had dry patches on my face. Cleansing with olive oil seemed to get rid of it.

Now I just wash my face in the bath and use Nivea from the blue pot.

Are you sure your skin is dehydrated and not dry? Cracked sounds full on dry ie lacking in oil.

Does your face feel different after cleansing with the oil or the honey? Have never used either but am picturing honey might leave your skin tighter I am just guessing here and the oil might be better

Then which acid toner are you using? Is it a bit much right now or too high in alcohol?

Rose water and glycerine spray is nice but prob not adding a lot to your skin - the rose water is really just for fragrance, glycerine may be stopping the next products actually getting in.

Pure serum - ingredients look good, there is the hyaluronic there + lots of nice ingredients like ceramides. So this is really good and should be stopping you from being dehydrated. It looks a great product adds to personal shopping list but your spray may be getting the way of it.

Moisturiser/rose hip oil - dunno. Either your moisturiser isn't good enough. Another possibility is that your skin is getting sensitised to essential oils/fragrance as sadly natural oils are common skin irritants - all natural is necessarily skin friendly.

Would recommend to drink a lot of water, it helped to me.

No, no no to water and Nivea. My skin is a bit dry AND very dehydrated AND sensitive - I have proper atopic crap skin, and the only thing that will really make it better is sunshine. The dehydration is bad every winter and it reaches a peak of awfulness around the end of February.

This sounds like me. Everything irritates my skin in winter. The central heating being on doesn't help, and the cold and wind make it worse.
At the moment, the only moisturiser that is working for me is Nivea blue pot, and also organ oil is helping.
I am using olive oil to cleanse and rose water as a toner. It is a little calmer today but that may be because the heating hasn't been on due to warmer weather the past few days. I find taking cod liver oil/fermented butter oil capsules helps in the long term, and on really awful days, just put olive oil on my face.
February is also the worst month for me, and this year seems worse than last year.

In the winter, think I drink too much tea/coffee and not enough water

Try decreasing acid toning to 3 times a week, not daily. Use a hydrating toner instead of of the rose & glycerine spray (Body Shop do a nice Vit E one) & use it after acid toning & between every cleanse/serum when you're not acid toning. So use it every day basically :)

Also perhaps try double cleansing, if there's a film of oil left on your skin then it may prevent your serum & moisturiser getting past it into your skin. So cleanse with oil first, then a cream or lotion, then a hydrating toner, then serum & moisturiser.

Oh also which acid toner are you using as some are stronger than others. Pixi is good for 3 times a week but if you are using the Nip & Fab pads then check to see whether you have the ultra strong ones as they will destroy your face if you use them every day :) if you have the ultra strong ones then use once per week & make sure you use a hydrating toner afterwards to get the residue off. If you are using the standard Nip & Fab pads then they are OK for 3 times a week :) (can't remember what they are called, I'm using Pixi at the moment so don't have any here)

That sounds sore, you poor thing.

Agree with PP about decreasing the acid toner. You could do it every second day, find a gentler one or find a weekly acid treatment instead.

Also agree with PP re hyaluronic acid. It's great at holding moisture in the skin. But you do need to add extra moisture to the skin at the same time or after you add the hyaluronic acid. If you put an oil on top of a hyaluronic acid product without ensuring you add sufficient moisture to the skin to "fill" up the hyaluronic acid (it holds up to 1000x it's own weight in water), you could end up making your skin feel more dry because it just sucks the pre-existing mositure out of the skin.

So it could be about the order you are putting the products on your skin. You are using a spray with hydrating ingredients, how about adding another spray in after you have popped on your serum, leave it for a minute or two to see if you skin feels comfortable (if not add a wee bit more) then putting the oil on top. Or you could try a more hydrating spray- Balance Me Hydrating Mist is lovely, so is the Juice Beauty one.

And, one last thing occurs to me. Oil cleansing is drying for some people. It depends on your skin, what oil you are using and how it interacts with your skin. Some oils have an astringent effect. So you might need to switch which oil you use, or, I find either a cream cleanser or a even better, a clay based cleanser much less drying.

Good luck.

I bought a couple of bottles of Dr Organic, Organic Virgin Coconut Oil Monoi Moisture Melt Body Oul recently to use on my dogs (couple of bald spots on the whippets from cuts from chasing squirrels et!) and for me to use as a body moisturiser.

On a whim I have used it on my face at bedtime. It is lovely, doesn't block ores and intensively moisturises whilst smelling divine.

Rosewater is not 'just for fragrance' Wolper

Anyway op, I suffer from dry skin and it used to get awful in winter, it's much better now even if I've neglected it a bit lately so it's not at its best!

Anyway, I use Last Roche Posey Toleraine cleanser, Boots Traditional Rosewater and glycerine toner and then Nivea in the blue pot. It makes a huge difference

• La Roche obviously, not Last Roche. Dumb phone!

Rosehip oil dried my skin out. Certainly wasn't the Holy Grail everyone seemed to rave about.
I'd agree with others that you need a more oomphy end moisturiser. You obviously like natural, have you tried Neals Yard frankincense nourishing?