The winter months can bring with them a number of skin challenges. From dryness and flaking to dehydration and sensitivities, the seasonal shift to colder, drier, and harsher weather can cause big problems for your complexion.

Fortunately, much of this can be avoided with the right know-how and skincare products. Read on as Venofye shares the winter skincare advice you need to know if you want to keep your skin glowing throughout the colder months.

Don’t Completely Overhaul Your Skincare Routine

There’s no denying that your skin will experience quite a few changes as the winter sets in, and your winter skincare routine should most definitely reflect that. We’ll be talking about that in more detail soon but, before we do, it’s important for you to understand that you shouldn’t be completely overhauling your current skincare routine.

During the winter, when your skin barrier is weaker and your skin is more prone to sensitivities, your skin needs consistency. Suddenly subjecting it to several new products and techniques is only going to send it into turmoil at a time when it needs your support.

Instead, in order to establish a solid winter skincare routine, look at tweaking, rather than completely changing, your current regimen. Only add in one new product at a time and do so gradually, giving your skin time to grow accustomed to it.

How exactly should you be tweaking your routine? Let’s take a closer look…

Give Your Skin Some Extra Hydration

When the skin is in a dry environment, transepidermal water loss speeds up. This is the rate at which water escapes from the skin due to evaporation. The drier the air around you, the faster your skin’s moisture content will evaporate away. 

Since the winter months bring with them a drop in humidity, the air can become extremely dry. This is why so many people suffer from dehydrated skin during the colder season.

To counter this, work on giving your skin some extra hydration. Hydration is important year-round, so hopefully you already have a few hydrating products in your skincare routine. However, for your winter skincare routine, try to add in one or two more. 

A hydrating toner, such as Venofye’s Blossom Bee Facial Toner, would be a good place to start. Toners are applied to the skin immediately after cleansing, making them a great way to give your skin some hydration before you start to apply any other products. Our toner is brimming with hydrating ingredients, along with bee venom. Our signature ingredient at Venofye, bee venom is loaded with antioxidants that will give your skin a gorgeous glow!

Help Your Skin to Retain its Hydration

Hydrating your skin is a two-part process. Not only do you need to give your skin that extra moisture, but you then need to provide some assistance when it comes to retaining that moisture. As we mentioned above, the lack of humidity in the winter means that the air around you will quickly sap away any moisture that you’ve recently given to your skin. This is exacerbated by the wind, which will strip away your skin’s protective barrier and speed up transepidermal water loss even more.

How can you help your skin to retain moisture? That’s where a moisturizer comes in. A face cream will seal off your skin’s surface, slowing down the rate at which moisture evaporates away. The thicker the moisturizer, the more effectively it will do this. However, at the same time, you still need to pick a moisturizer that’s suitable for your skin type. Don’t go with an exceptionally greasy and heavy formula if you have oily skin!

One moisturizer that would work well in your winter skincare routine, no matter your skin type, is the Venofye Beehive Silk Cream. It has quite a light texture yet it’s loaded with richly moisturizing ingredients that will help to extend how long your skin feels deeply hydrated.

Layer Up at Nights

We’ve already talked about how the skin continuously loses significant amounts of moisture in the winter months. This happens 24/7, but it actually speeds up overnight. This is why many people wake up with dry and flaky skin on winter mornings.

To prevent this, make sure that your evening winter skincare routine consists of a few different layers. There’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple and only using a cleanser and a moisturizer, but if you want your skin to glow throughout the colder season, layering up your winter skincare each evening can be extremely beneficial.

How can you do this? 

Start by applying a hydrating toner after cleansing. Then, follow up with one or two serums. Ideally, one should be focused on hydration while the other should be capable of tackling any visible skin concerns that you’re dealing with. Of course, some serums, like the Blossom Bee Vitamin C Serum, will be able to do both. You should then finish off with a face cream.

Once a week, it would also be a good idea to add an overnight face mask to your winter skincare routine. The Venofye Beehive HydraLift Mask, for example, is filled with hydrating ingredients, including sodium hyaluronate, squalane, aloe vera leaf extract, and glycerin. It’s also packed with a long list of antioxidant-rich fruit extracts, which will have you waking up to skin that feels ultra-soft and smooth!

Consider Switching to a Gentler Cleanser

Studies have found that skin barrier function declines in the winter months. This is one of the reasons why moisture loss increases. With the skin barrier no longer capable of trapping in quite as much moisture, all of that moisture is able to evaporate away so much more easily.

Giving your skin extra hydration, along with a good face cream to trap all of that moisture in, will help. However, it can also be beneficial to turn your attention to your skin barrier itself. Work on ensuring that it feels strong and fortified, so that you can help to encourage its moisture retention capabilities.

One way to do this is by reassessing your cleanser. Many cleansers contain ingredients that strip away the skin barrier, leaving it even more vulnerable. This may not be such an issue during the summer when your skin is producing a constant stream of sebum but, in the dry winter months, it can be a big problem.

So, once the colder weather rolls around, consider switching cleansers. Your winter skincare routine should contain a gentle cleanser that isn’t going to strip or harm your skin in any way. Ideally, it should also be formulated with a few moisturizing ingredients. These will support your skin barrier, leaving it feeling more resilient.

That’s exactly what the Venofye Blossom Bee Clarifying Cream Cleanser does. Cream cleansers are absolutely fantastic for winter skincare. They’re rich, creamy, and super moisturizing. This one is brimming with plant oils, including argan and moringa, as well as plant extracts, to give your complexion an additional boost.

Avoid Harsh Exfoliants

It’s not just cleansers that strip away the skin’s natural protective barrier. Exfoliators can be just as responsible for this demise. In fact, with exfoliators delving deeper into the skin than cleansers, they can cause even more damage.

So, in addition to swapping your powerful summertime cleanser for a gentler version in the winter, do the same with your exfoliator too. You need a formula that will thoroughly clear away the rough and dead skin cells that quickly build up on the skin during the winter, but without interfering with your skin’s natural barrier.

That’s something that the Venofye Blossom Bee Facial Peeling can help with. It’s a physical exfoliant, so you won’t have to worry about subjecting your skin to harsh acids. At the same time, it’s not overly abrasive, meaning that it won’t tear or scratch your skin. Like all Venofye products, this formula contains bee venom too. This will give your skin an extra layer of antioxidants, which it will no doubt appreciate!

Keep Using SPF

It’s common knowledge that SPF is essential during the summer months. When those UV rays are beating down on you, it’s one of the best ways to keep your skin protected from sun damage.

However, once temperatures drop and the sun is hidden behind thick clouds, people often tend to put their sunscreen products away until the following spring. They don’t realize that UV rays are present year-round, meaning that their skin is still susceptible to damage.

Although UV rays aren’t quite as strong on a dull and dark winter’s day, they can still trigger everything from accelerated skin aging to skin cancer. This worsens when there’s snow or ice outside. UV rays actually bounce off those surfaces and are then magnified, meaning that they’re even stronger by the time they touch your skin.

So, although it may not seem as though you need to worry about sun damage when it comes to your winter skincare routine, you most certainly do. Keep up with your SPF efforts, making sure that your skin is covered with a layer of sunscreen whenever you’re outdoors. Just like in the summer months, you’ll need to reapply this every couple of hours until the sun goes down. 

Don’t Ignore Sensitivities

We’ve already talked about how skin barrier function declines in the winter. Well, in addition to leading to dehydration and dryness, this can also cause your skin to become more sensitive. One of the roles of your skin barrier is to keep irritants away from the deeper layers of your skin. When your skin barrier isn’t functioning optimally, it fails to do this properly.

It’s important to be aware of this in the winter as you may find that your skin reacts to products that it didn’t have any issues with during the summer. If this happens, don’t ignore it. 

Instead, try to figure out why your skin is reacting. It could be down to anything from added fragrances and preservatives to overly potent active ingredients. Whatever the case may be, eliminate those products from your winter skincare routine until your complexion has calmed down. Once this happens, you can then consider reintroducing them gradually.

Winter Skincare With Venofye

There’s no denying that it can be extremely difficult to care for your skin during the winter months, particularly if your skin is already prone to dryness, dehydration, or sensitivities. However, follow the tips above and try to stay one step ahead of any potential problems that you may experience. This should be enough to give your skin exactly what it needs to thrive during the colder season!

Click here to enhance your winter skincare routine with more bestsellers from Venofye.