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To truly hydrate your skin you must do more than apply lotion. Hydrating your skin begins in the shower with a moisturizing body wash that includes ingredients like hyaluronic acid and shea butter.
Which body washes for dry skin are best?
Many body washes give you a squeaky-clean feeling that leaves your skin feeling tight and dry. While you want to step out of the shower feeling clean, you don’t want to strip the moisture from the surface of your skin.
When dealing with dry skin, sometimes not even the best lotions are enough to repair the dryness, so soothing dry skin should begin in the shower with a body wash for dry skin. CeraVe Body Wash for dry skin contains the ingredients your skin needs to be smooth, healthy and hydrated.
What is Your Skin Barrier and How Does It Work?
The skin barrier is the outermost layer of your skin. This includes the stratum corneum, the outer layer of the epidermis. In the stratum corneum, you’ll find not only skin cells but also lipids and natural moisturizing factors such as amino acids and fatty acids. (If you are wondering why you notice dry skin as you age, it is because our bodies produce less of these lipids the older we get.)
Imagine that this layer of your skin as a brick wall. Think of your skin cells as the bricks and lipids (oils) and fats as the mortar that glue the walls together. The skin barrier regulates and keeps moisture in while keeping environmental stressors like UV radiation and pollution out. Its happy place is around a pH of 5.0.
If your skin barrier is damaged, you can not only experience issues with environmental stressors such as sun damage and pollution, but this can allow other environmental irritants, chemicals, and infections in while letting moisture escape from the skin. This is when irritation, inflammation, redness, and dryness can creep in.
You may not know it, but you may unknowingly be contributing to added stress to your skin barrier if you over-exfoliate or use skin care products that are too strong or wrong for your skin type. Also, keep in mind that genetics may play a part in how your skin barrier interacts with its environment.
Related Post: The Best Antibacterial Body Washes
How to Protect Your Skin Barrier
Sometimes limiting the number of products you use on your skin is your best bet. This article from The NY Times about how we are damaging our skin with too many products is rather eye-opening.
It’s also essential to wear sunscreen on your body when your skin is exposed to UV rays. Sunscreen will not only keep your skin looking younger as you age, but it will also protect you from damaging UV rays which can compromise your skin barrier, making dry skin worse.
Choosing a gentle body wash such as one from this list will not only clean but also soothe dry and dehydrated skin. Remember that treating your skin in the shower is not your last line of defense. Be sure to moisturize the skin all over your body to seal in hydration.
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Onto the best body washes for dry skin! Scroll down to the bottom of the post for more ideas on treating and preventing dry skin.
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