Cheeks that feel tight when you leave the office, lips that crack at the first north wind, rough hands after a week of frost: winter quickly leaves its mark. To protect your skin from the cold, piling on products does not achieve much. What matters is understanding what happens at the surface of the epidermis, where a thin layer of cells and lipids acts as a rampart. Once this mechanism is understood, the right gestures follow naturally, and a routine of certified organic facial care can be adjusted in a few minutes.
Skin barrier: what the cold really changes
A brick-and-mortar structure
The skin barrier sits in the most superficial layer of the epidermis, the stratum corneum. To describe it, dermatologists readily speak of a wall. The bricks are flattened cells filled with keratin, the corneocytes. The mortar that binds them is a mixture of lipids, mainly ceramides, cholesterol and fatty acids. On top, the hydrolipidic film, made of sweat and sebum, completes the system.
This wall fulfils two missions at once: blocking what comes from outside and retaining water inside. The review by Proksch, Brandner and Jensen on how the skin barrier works details this dual role. It explains why a weakened barrier often shows itself in two ways at the same time: tightness and more reactive skin.
Cold, wind, heating: three stressors that add up
Cold acts first on circulation. In contact with icy air, the skin's small blood vessels contract to keep heat in the core of the body. The skin then receives less blood, and therefore fewer nutrients.
Wind, for its part, speeds up evaporation at the surface. And once you are back indoors, heating makes the humidity of indoor air drop. Outside as well as inside, the skin therefore lives in an atmosphere that takes its water. This continuous evaporation has a name, transepidermal water loss: it exists all year round, but the cold, dry winter air accentuates it, and the lipid mortar struggles to keep up.
The signs are familiar: skin feels tight after the shower, foundation clings to the sides of the nose, redness appears. They also affect people whose skin remains perfectly comfortable in summer.
Winter face routine: protecting the skin barrier every day
On the face, the goal fits in one sentence: remove less, give more. Four moments in the routine deserve an adjustment.
Cleanse without stripping
When the temperature drops, we quickly tend to wash our face with hot water. Yet it dissolves some of the lipids that bind the stratum corneum. At the sink, lukewarm water is more than enough.
Cleansing should remove impurities and make-up without taking away the protective film. In the evening, a micellar water removes make-up without rubbing. In the morning, a facial cleansing foam, light and easy to rinse, takes over. Then pat dry with a clean towel rather than rubbing.
Moisturise, then nourish
The two words are often confused, wrongly. Moisturising means providing water and helping the skin retain it: this is the role of actives such as glycerin, aloe vera or hyaluronic acid, recognised for their moisturising properties. Nourishing means providing lipids that support the barrier's mortar, such as plant oils and butters.
In winter, the skin needs both. An organic face cream, applied morning and evening to clean skin, lays the foundation. On very cold days, a few drops of organic care oil as the last step, warmed between the palms then pressed onto the face, form a veil that limits evaporation. Born to Bio care oils have another advantage: they can also be used on the body and hair, one bottle for a whole weekend in the mountains.
Exfoliate in moderation
Should you give up scrubs in winter? No, but space them out. Removing dead cells smooths the skin's texture and prepares it to receive the cream. Too frequent, however, scrubbing erodes a lipid mortar that is already under strain. A gentle facial scrub, once a week, twice at most, strikes the right balance. At the slightest sign of irritation, space it out further.
Cold does not stop UV rays
A day of skiing under a blue sky can expose you more than a day at the beach. According to the World Health Organization's guide to the UV index, fresh snow reflects up to 80% of UV rays, and UV radiation increases by about 10% every 1,000 metres of altitude. In the mountains, the skin therefore receives both the rays from the sky and those reflected by the ground.
In the lowlands, the winter UV index generally remains low. Suitable sun protection, however, still makes complete sense as soon as you spend time outdoors at altitude, on the slopes, snowshoeing or at the top of a mountain pass. The nose, cheekbones and lips are the areas not to forget.
Lips and hands, the areas most exposed to the cold
Chapped lips: why they are the first to be affected
The skin of the lips is different. Very thin, it has almost no sebaceous glands and therefore produces almost no sebum to defend itself. Faced with the wind, it loses its water faster than the rest of the face, and small cracks soon appear.
The reflex of licking your lips makes things worse: as it evaporates, saliva takes away a little more moisture. A nourishing balm is better, applied several times a day and always before going out, with a more generous layer at bedtime. If your lips are peeling, resist the urge to pull at the little flakes.
Hands: the gesture after every wash
Hands accumulate stresses: direct exposure to the cold, repeated washing, hand sanitiser, washing-up water. Each wash removes part of the protective film.
The solution comes down to one habit: a hazelnut-sized amount of organic hand cream after each wash, massaged in up to the cuticles and between the fingers. One tube by the sink, another in your bag, and the gesture becomes automatic. Outdoors, gloves remain the best barrier against the wind. When hands are really uncomfortable, a thick layer at bedtime under cotton gloves works wonders for comfort on waking.
Body care in winter: the shower and after
In the shower, the temptation of scalding water is strong. Yet it has the same effect on the whole body as on the face. Lukewarm water and a shorter shower better preserve surface lipids.
The decisive moment comes right after. On skin that is still slightly damp, an organic body lotion spreads effortlessly and helps retain the water left on the surface. On very cold evenings, the same care oil as for the face takes over on the areas that feel tightest: shins, elbows, knees.
Once a week, a body scrub such as our apricot scrub rids the skin of dead cells and leaves it softer, ready for the care that follows.
All these face and body products are certified organic, under the Ecocert, Cosmébio and COSMOS Organic labels, and made with at least 97% ingredients of natural origin.
Drinking enough: what we really know
We often hear that drinking a lot of water hydrates the skin. The reality is more nuanced: the water you drink first serves the body as a whole, and studies on its direct effect on the stratum corneum remain few.
Staying well hydrated is nevertheless part of a healthy lifestyle, winter included. In cold weather, we often feel less thirsty and drink less without realising it. The European Food Safety Authority sets recommended water intakes by EFSA at 2 litres per day for an adult woman and 2.5 litres for an adult man, counting water from drinks and from food. Soups, herbal teas and broths therefore count too.
This habit accompanies the routine without replacing it: it is at the surface, through care, that the skin barrier finds its most direct support.
Conclusion
Less aggression, more nourishment and plenty of regularity: that is what lets you get through the cold season with comfortable skin, from your forehead to your fingertips. To discover where these products come from, the page dedicated to our manufacturing in the Vichy basin tells how Laboratoires Bio Seasons oversee each formula, from research to bottling.
