Lifestyle Choices

The Cause

Dried-out, dried-up skin usually comes from underactive sebaceous glands, which, due to a hormone imbalance or vitamin or mineral deficiencies, don’t produce enough of this important oily fluid to lubricate the skin and protect it from excessive water loss. It can also be the result of being exposed to excessively drying weather conditions, central heating, or air conditioning. Another, rarer cause is being on a diet too low in essential fatty acids, such as a fat-free slimming regimen. Finally, sometimes dried-out skin is due to an incorrect water balance in the horny cells as a result of their being exposed to water (e.g. in swimming) for so long that they have swollen and burst, or to their having been deprived of water for so long that they gradually desiccate. Excessive dryness of the skin also occurs in people who, unknown to themselves, are suffering from subclinical deficiencies of vitamin A or C or any one of several of the B-complex group or of linoleic acid. (more…)

Your skin is constantly giving up moisture, not just through the sweat ducts but through a process of transpiration in which water in the cells on its surface evaporates directly into the atmosphere. This is quite different from perspiring, which only happens to any marked degree when the body is warm. Transpiration occurs constantly. The lower the humidity in your environment, the more rapid will be the water loss and the greater the need to protect against it. And what most women don’t realize is that the humidity of the average centrally heated home or office is comparable to that of the Sahara Desert. Similarly, chemical pollutants, soaps, makeup, and anything that affects the hydrolipidic film decreases its effectiveness and leads to further dehydration.

I learned the truth of this for myself when I spent a month in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas. There was no water to wash with, no air pollution, and no stress, for I was spending most of my days and nights in meditation. Neither was there a mirror. (more…)