A-Z skin hydration Articles

Dry skin can make even the simplest routines feel uncomfortable, affecting both how your skin looks and feels. Changes in weather, lifestyle, and skincare habits can all play a role, making it important to take a thoughtful, consistent approach to hydration and skin support. In this article, we'll share practical, effective dry skin tips to help restore moisture, improve texture, and keep your skin looking healthy and radiant. 

Understanding The Skin

The skin is the largest organ in the body.  Its function is to act as a barrier to the external environment, allow the exchange of water and to modify vitamins. Dry skin can be simple or complex.

What Causes Dry Skin?

When the skin is deficient in natural oils, it cannot hold adequate water in its cells, which causes simple dry skin. Oil is important as it acts as a barrier, protecting the skin from water evaporation in the upper layers of the skin while also providing lubrication. Simple dry skin is seen usually in women under 35 years.

Complex dry skin lacks oil and moisture. It commonly affects older adults and relates to aging. Prolonged UV exposure damages the protein in the skin and will lead to the development of fine lines, enlarged pores and brown spots.

What Are The Symtpoms of Dry Skin?

Dry skin appears dull, scaly, flaky, chapped or cracked, and develops fine lines and wrinkles more readily than healthy skin. Skin often feels tight after washing and improves with moisturizer. It appears most on exposed body areas. Nutrient deficiencies, dehydration, chemicals, cosmetics, frequent bathing, harsh soaps, and environmental factors like dry heat, sun, or wind can all cause it.

Dry Skin Support: Topical Treatments & Diet

To fight dry skin topically, avoid chlorinated tap water for drinking and bathing. Stay out of the sun. Use gloves while handling any substance that irritates the skin. Avoid perfumes and colourings in laundry and personal hygiene products. Use glycerin and natural soaps to wash your body, face, and hair. Take oatmeal baths to relieve itching.

Calendula, vitamin E cream, ointment or aloe vera gel can be used to nourish the skin. Steam the skin with herbs such as chamomile, lavender or peppermint.

Dietary change is important for nourishing the skin. Eat foods high in zinc, such as whole grains, sunflower seeds, and raw nuts. Eat lots of fruit, especially mango and apricot, for its water content and alpha-hydroxy acids.  Sulphur-rich foods, like garlic, onions, eggs and asparagus, provide the raw material for building skin proteins.

Essential fatty acids are a source of the good fats for the skin. Use cold-pressed oils, like flax, olive, sunflower and safflower. Avoid hydrogenated fats, fried foods, soft drinks, sugar, chocolate, junk foods, cigarettes and alcohol. Ask your health professional if the prescription medication you are taking is contributing to your dry skin.

We all know that our bodies are made up of an incredibly large number of cells (current estimates are around 10 trillion), but have you ever wondered what holds all of those cells together, and fills in the gaps between them? This extracellular “glue” is called the matrix (no Neo here though sci-fi fans). It turns out that a large percentage of the extracellular matrix is made up of molecules called hyaluronic acid (HA). Let's explore what HA is and how hyaluronic acid supplements can help your health.

What is Hyaluronic Acid?

HA is a glycosaminoglycan, which means it is an extremely large chain of sugar molecules linked together. When HA is in the presence of water, it forms what early researchers described as “goo” (sounds wonderful, no?). This “goo” is what fills in the gaps between your cells and makes your body soft and squishy to the touch. 

HA can draw water into the tissues that keep you hydrated and maintain skin resilience. It thickens some fluids in your body and softens most tissues. More recent research has found that hyaluronic acid also provides a framework for immune cells to travel along and climb through as they migrate through tissues. HA is found in high concentrations in many tissues in the body, including: 

• Skin
• Cartilage
• The fluid inside the eye

Key Health Benefits of Hyaluronic Acid Supplements

Wrinkles and Skin Aging

The tissue below the outer layer of the skin is packed with HA. This glycosaminoglycan draws water into the tissues and keeps them plump. When there is not enough HA or water present, the tissue below the skin loses thickness, and as a result, the skin will sag and wrinkle. Thus, a simple way to combat the visible signs of aging is to support healthy HA synthesis in the skin and to keep it well hydrated with sufficient water to promote the plumping out of deeper wrinkles, and reduction of fine lines. HA is commonly injected by medical doctors and plastic surgeons to directly plump up wrinkles and lines in the face. These are the injections marketed as “fillers” like Restylane.

Protects the Skin

HA has recently been established as the primary free radical scavenger in the skin, and potentially in the rest of the body as well. Free radicals are unstable molecules with an unpaired electron that are extremely reactive, and damage surrounding cell membranes, fats, and fat-soluble vitamins and nutrients. We encounter free radicals through environmental exposures, such as cigarette smoke, air pollution, processed foods, and ultraviolet radiation from the sun (UV rays). The damage caused by free radicals can result in cell death, alterations in genetic material and autoimmune reactions to damaged cells. It has been found that in sunburned skin, HA becomes degraded in large amounts and later this was found to be because it absorbed much of the UV radiation. Thus, HA helps to protect the skin against free radical damage from the sun, at its own expense. HA also holds other antioxidants in the skin, like vitamin A, so they can further protect against damage.

Wound Healing and Skin Inflammation

Because a large number of our tissues are made up of HA saturated with water, and so when they become damaged HA plays a leading role in healing. When an injury first occurs, HA synthesis nearby increases to help promote immune cell migration to the area. Dry skin conditions caused by allergic Dermatitis can often be treated using a lotion containing high concentrations of HA. Application of HA to wounds can help to trigger faster healing, particularly in tissues already rich in HA, such as the eye. Because of this, HA can be applied to wounds, burns, as well as skin and mouth ulcers to help speed their healing.

Joint Health

The cartilage that makes up the lining of the joint surfaces contains HA, which helps to provide elasticity and flexibility. HA is also found in the fluid that cushions our joints and prevents friction within the joint capsule. Supplementation with HA can significantly help to support healthy joint surfaces and joint function. Some medical doctors will provide HA injections directly into joints affected by osteoarthritis to help reduce symptoms. Research has shown that the cartilage in joints with osteoarthritis does not contain sufficient HA.

Exploring Hyaluronic Acid Supplements

The human body naturally produces hyaluronic acid in its tissues and can also be extracted from rooster combs as an animal source. Hyaluronic acid used in supplements is synthesized by bacteria in a laboratory. 

A diet rich in root vegetables and green leafy veggies can act as an excellent source of HA. Some examples are potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, kale, and spinach. Eat these raw as much as possible to preserve the heat-sensitive HA. For supplementing HA there is currently no established dose in the research, but it is commonly recommended at 200mg, twice daily. Topical creams and gels tend to contain 2.5% HA and can be applied to the skin as the manufacturer suggests.

Finally, the time has come for you to love your skin, from the inside out! Lipowheat, featured on The Dr. Oz Show is praised for taking dry, itchy skin and naturally moisturising it to appear youthful from; you guessed it, the inside out. This fairly new supplement first became popular in Asia, but recently released scientific information has surfaced, providing us with proper dosages and how it can work wonders on your skin.

What are Ceramides?

Our skin is the largest, and often arguably, the most important organ of the body. But as we age, our skin naturally loses ceramides – the loss of which is said to be linked to dry and damaged skin. Sound familiar? Ceramides are natural lipids and are a major component in surface skin structure – they serve as the glue that holds our surface skin cells together. However, the ceramides of lipowheat protect the ‘treasure’ of our skin, known as the fibroblasts. As noted, dry, irritated and sensitive skin is often a result of a lack of these ceramides, which can in turn make your skin more susceptible to changes in the weather, environment or other irritants.

Exploring The Nutrients In Lipowheat

A loss of ceramides can easily be replenished with a supplement called Lipowheat. Dr Oz recommends the lipowheat chain because this supplement helps reach the blood vessels and bring moisture to the nutrients under the surface of the skin, which in turn gets pushed up through the skin. The healthier it is under the surface, the more appealing it will be on the surface – makes sense! The moisture levels that get pushed up help fill dry skin, wrinkles and fine lines and the healthy blood vessels give your skin the look it had in its prime – youthful glow, anyone? Some people can see the benefits in as little as two weeks, and the recently discovered safe and recommended dosage is 300ml/daily.

Health & Skin Benefits of Lipowheat

One of the bonuses to taking lipowheat as a supplement for healthier skin and not just relying on moisturiser is that you’re guaranteeing it's going to the skin. We're not saying that moisturising is bad, but when you use creams or lotions there is always the possibility that it could rub off before it’s fully absorbed. Especially depending on what you're doing after you apply it or the elements you’re skin is facing after it’s applied. Once you start taking lipowheat consistently, you will also notice that your skin is now naturally hydrated, and in turn, you will cut back on using moisturiser in general – saving you time and money!