What Causes Dry Skin?

As you travel along the road of life, your body goes through certain specific changes that modifies the way it processes nutrients, repairs itself, and fights foreign bodies.  So it should go without saying that the again process has something to do with the relative dryness of your skin.  It is said that as you age, your sebaceous glands go through a change.  Your sebaceous glands secrete oils that keep your skin soft and moisturized.  As you age, the numbers of available sebaceous glands in your body that provide oil begin to decrease in number.  This is a natural process, but it leads to your skin not getting the oil it needs, thus developing a drier nature than it had when you were an infant.

Also as you age, different processes are taking place.  Your skin begins to develop an inability to retain its liquid contents.  So as the moisture in your skin evaporates, it leaves behind a dry ground that leads to many of the irritating and possibly damaging effects you experience as you wish you could itch that red patch into a blood spot.  Please note that itching a dry skin patch will only result in repeatedly stressing that area and leaving it open to infection.  This condition can lead to other harmful and disfiguring maladies best left alone.  So if your skin itches due to dryness, you should gently clean the area and apply a hypoallergenic moisturizer.

There is also the possibility of heredity.  Did you realize that your skin condition could be passed down through the genes that also gave you brown hair?  So if you have blood relatives that suffer from dry skin or maladies such as eczema or Psoriasis, you stand a good chance of developing these conditions yourself.  Do not waste time blaming your parents.  With proper early diagnosis and treatment, dry skin and even the conditions mentioned can be out under control or eliminated, even if you suffer from the extreme condition of Ichthyosis.  Ichthyosis is a condition where your skin begins to scale in shapes similar to the scales that cover the fish that you intend to cook for dinner tonight.

You must be sensitive to your environment before your skin becomes sensitive to your environment.  If you wash your skin too often,  too much cleanser can strip your skin of important nutrients and oils.  Do you live on the prairies where rain is an odd occurrence?  Ambient moisture or lack of it can have a huge affect on your skin health.  Dry skin arises, of course, in a dry environment.  Test the humidity of your home.  If it is overly dry, you may want to install a humidifier.  If the dryness exists outside, you may want to consider carrying water with you to replenish the moisture escaping from your pores.   Do you worship the sun, lying out for hours at a time, seven days a week?  Well, beyond bombarding yourself with rays that reek havoc with your free radicals.  You also cause your moisture to evaporate due to the heat.  It is not just the heat, but also the sun tanning your skin.  This tanning process requires moisture replenishment and if you are unprepared you can end up losing damaging amounts of skin moisture.  Again, it would be recommended to carry water with you always.  Or better yet, avoid the sun whenever possible and use sunscreen whenever you are exposed to its rays.

All of these things can cause dry skin, but with a simple regimen of product use and prevention; you can have beautiful healthy skin for the rest of your life.