Calvert Creak
Skin Care Information
Causes of Chapped Skin
Chapped skin is often caused by the environment. Too much exposure of the skin to the sun, wind or cold temperatures can cause skin to become chapped.
Air-conditioned rooms/offices are generally very dry and contain very little humidity. This can lead to water loss from the skin which contributes to chapping.
Frequent contact with harsh soaps, chemicals or even water can strip the skin of its natural oils, causing chapping.
Nutritional deficiency of essential fatty acids can lead to chapping as the essential fatty acids are need to produce the skin’s natural oils.
Tight-fitting clothing can cause friction that causing chapping of the skin.
How to Avoid Chapped Skin
- Always use a sunscreen and/or protective clothing when outdoors in Summer with one exception: small amounts of unprotected sunlight exposure are needed in order to produce vitamin D in the skin.
- Use rubber gloves when you are handling harsh chemicals, especially when you are cleaning or scrubbing.
- Avoid very tight-fitting clothing.
- To avoid the dry air produced by air conditioning and central heating, use a humidifier or place bowls of water near the heature to counteract the loss of humidity.
- Make sure that your get adequate sleep as the most of the skin healing that occurs at a cellular level occurs during sleep.
- Increase your exercise activities as exercise increases blood circulation to the skin, enabling more essential nutrients to be provided to the skin for producing the skin’s essential oils.
How to Treat Chapped Skin
Consume flax seed oil or unrefined vegetable oils that supply the necessary fatty acids that support the production of your skin’s natural oils. Evening primrose oil, blackcurrant seed oil or borage seed oil are also useful because they contain the omega-6 fatty acid named gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) which may increase the skin’s moisture content.
Vitamin B5 (also called pantothenic acid) is required for the production of the skin’s natural oils. This vitamin is abundant in most grains, legumes and brewer’s yeast. You can also obtain it in tablets/capsules as a supplement.
Vitamin A is also essential for rapid resolution of chapped skin. Cod liver oil is an excellent source of this vitamin.
Vitamin C supplements support the production of collagen, a structural protein necessary for the healing of chapped skin.
A salt bath may be helpful. Salt baths often cause a significant reduction in chapping and scaling. They can also relieve the itching that occurs in chapped skin.
Avoid the use of soap completely on chapped areas. Soap dissolves the skin’s oils and removes them from the skin surface.
Calvert Creak to the Rescue
Chapped skin requires special attention to restoring the skin’s oil balance. Calvert Creak’s range of products includes numerous constituents designed to counteract oily skin, including:
- Carrot oil is a natural source of more than 600 antioxidants that help to prevent and reverse sunlight-induced skin damage. Carrot oil is particularly rich in beta-carotene and vitamin E, which help to heal dry, chapped, cracked skin. Carrot oil helps to maintain the skin’s moisture balance.
- Sweet almond oil is a rapidly-absorbed, odourless, light oil that softens, moisturises and conditions the skin. It is particularly helpful for eczema and itchy, dry, inflamed skin and skin stressed from wind and sun exposure.
- Avocado oil. Several years ago, herbal investigators noticed that Guatemalan women who used avocado oil on their skin every day looked approximately twenty years younger than their chronological age. Avocado oil is highly penetrative and is excellent for dry and ageing skin. Studies have shown that avocado oil increases the collagen content of the dermal layer of the skin. Sensitive skin, chapped skin, eczema and psoriasis respond favourably to this oil.
- Olive oil contains useful levels of the essential fatty acids alpha-linolenic acid and oleic acid. It is particularly beneficial for treating dry or inflamed skin. Olive oil is also an excellent natural antioxidant and antimicrobial that has been used for over a thousand years along the Mediterranean as a skin moisturiser and protectant.
