Salt scrub on dry winter skin — how often and how hard

Why skin feels different in winter

Three things happen at once. Indoor air dries out with the heating on, showers get hotter and longer, and clothes sit closer to the skin. None of them has anything to do with the scrub, but all three change how it feels.

The effect is that skin both looks drier and takes less. Which means the most common winter routine — scrubbing more often because there is more dry skin to see — pulls the wrong way.

Frequency and pressure

Keep it at once or twice a week. Change three other things instead:

• Lighter pressure. The crystals always do the work, but on winter skin the difference between light and hard shows more clearly.
• Less time per area. Ten seconds instead of twenty.
• Warm, not hot water. A hot shower feels good at the time and is what dries skin most.

More on what sets the frequency is on how often should you use a salt scrub.

What actually makes the difference is the step after

A scrub removes loose material. It does not put anything back — beyond the oil left over from the jar, and that is less than what you apply yourself.

Do it while the skin is still warm and slightly damp, straight out of the shower and before you dress:

• Body oil spreads most easily on warm skin and takes a while to sink in. Best in the evening.
• Body lotion sinks in faster and leaves no film. Best when you need to get dressed straight away.

If you only take one thing from this page, take this one.

Dry skin, itching and cracks

Itching that persists, skin that cracks, or areas that turn red and stay red are not something a scrub should handle. Don’t scrub cracked skin — salt in a crack stings, and that is all the answer you need.

What lies behind persistent dryness is a question for someone who can assess skin. We sell a body scrub and can tell you exactly what it is: sea salt in sunflower and rapeseed oil. What your skin makes of it is not something we make claims about.

The winter exception: feet and elbows

The rest of the body takes less in winter. Heels and elbows take roughly the same all year, and that is where a salt scrub shows fastest. Do them separately and more often than the rest — two or three times a week — and put oil on straight afterwards. There is a separate page on it: salt scrub for feet and heels.

Fragrance in winter

Mintcalypto Energize is mint and eucalyptus and feels the coolest of the three — it is most noticeable in a hot shower. Neoporto is the calmest and stays longest, which tends to be what you want on a dark afternoon. The base is the same in all three, so the choice is fragrance and nothing else.