Ah, dryness. The unfortunate friend of cold winter weather and cozy heated homes. It can feel both unavoidable and unmanageable. When nothing seems to be helping your dry skin, and it feels constantly parched, you’ll try anything. But the frustration doesn’t have to last for long. When you use the best ingredients for dry skin type, you can nip it in the bud and experience hydrated, more healthy-looking skin sooner.

Here at REN, we use clean ingredients from sustainable sources so you can have skincare that respects your skin and the planet. A few of our favorite ingredients for dry skin include fruit-derived oils and acids, plant extracts, magnesium, and hyaluronic acid. Let’s dive into the benefits of these powerful, clean ingredients, and how you can incorporate them into your skincare routine for dry skin.

Why You Need Specific Ingredients for Dry Skin

While we wish we could reap the same great benefits from the same skincare routine year round, different conditions require different attention. When it comes to addressing dry skin concerns, which typically plague us during the winter, there are multiple parts. By understanding these concerns, we will learn how to prevent dry skin in winter months.

Dry skin simply means your skin doesn’t have enough water, so the first order of business is to supply hydration. You need ingredients that add ample hydration to the skin. Secondly, you need ingredients that help to soothe the symptoms of dry skin such as redness and irritation. Thirdly, you need ingredients that resurface the skin and rid it of dead skin cells that could accumulate into pores and keep the hydrating ingredients from working. Finally, you need ingredients that help lock in moisture and keep it from escaping from your skin. Helping your dehydrated skin will help improve your skin’s appearance.

Thankfully, nature supplies a host of ingredients that do all that and more, and you don’t need a lot of products to hit every mark. Whether you struggle from dry skin all of the time or just every now and then, a select few products that boast these great ingredients for dry skin will help you see a dramatic decrease in dryness.

Hyaluronic Acid

One of the best ingredients for dry skin is Hyaluronic Acid. Hyaluronic Acid, often referred to as HA, is naturally occurring in your body already. It is what allows your skin to hold onto water molecules and retain moisture. When battling dry skin, this is an ingredient that fights it from the inside out, and thus, an important ingredient to have as a part of your dry skincare routine.

Our Flash Hydro-Boost Instant Plumping Emulsion features Hyaluronic Acid to maximize your skin’s hydration levels and help draw in water and lock it in place. This water-charged hydration booster will both instantly hydrate and help prevent the first signs of aging caused by dehydration. In the long run, it will help to reduce fine lines and prevent water loss from the skin.

How to Use: Whenever you use a product with Hyaluronic Acid such as our Flash Hydro-Boost, apply it right after cleansing and before moisturizer. The Hyaluronic Acid will act as a sponge and help your skin hold onto the moisture you supply throughout your skincare routine.

Acids

An important part of any dry skincare routine is exfoliation. Exfoliating helps remove the dead skin cells on the surface of your skin so it can be free from flakes that come from dryness and better absorb the hydrating ingredients you apply afterward.

To provide your skin with gentle exfoliation, we use all-natural fruit and yeast-derived acids to help to further remove dead skin cells and smoothe the overall skin texture and radiance. This ingredient is key to the powerful results of our Glycol Lactic Radiance Renewal Mask. This mask helps smooth skin texture, alleviate the key signs of sensitive skin and strengthen the skin's protective moisture barrier.

How to Use: Any products containing acids can make skin more sensitive, so be sure to ease into using them and perform a patch test on your skin as necessary. For a weekly treatment, use the Glycol Lactic Radiance Renewal Mask.

Oils

In addition to acids derived from fruit and yeast, oils derived from fruit and other plants also provide hydrating benefits to the skin and are incredible at keeping water from escaping. For ultra-nourishment and moisture we use oils from Olive, Almond, Borage, and Linseed. We combine these nourishing lipids in products such as our Evercalm Overnight Recovery Balm.

We also use other natural oils such as Camellia oil, Sunflower Seed oil and Safflower oil which work to rehydrate the skin, replenish the skin’s natural barrier, and protect the moisture barrier to prevent continued dryness. You can find these ingredients in our Rose O12 Moisture Defence Oil.

In addition to strengthening the skin’s natural barrier, all of these oils also contain antioxidants, which can also help protect the skin from environmental stressors that cause dryness in the first place such as cold weather, dry air, and wind.

How to use: Oils can be incorporated into your routine at any stage, as part of a gentle cleanser, or as the final step in your routine to lock in moisture and give you a soft and supple complexion.

Atlantic Kelp Extract

Atlantic Kelp Extract is a rich source of essential minerals such as sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, amongst others that help nourish and soothe the skin. It also has excellent water-binding abilities that help hydrate the skin and form a protective moisturizing barrier on it’s surface.

We love this oceanic ingredient to hydrate, smooth, and tone the skin all over. As a chief ingredient in our Atlantic Kelp & Magnesium Ocean Plastic Body Wash, it will help you experience moisturized and visibly smoother skin that also looks more radiant.

How to use: Atlantic Kelp Extract can be used at any point in your shower routine. Incorporate it into your self-care ritual with the Atlantic Kelp and Microalgae Bath Oil, or throughout the day with the Hand Wash.

Magnesium

Magnesium PCA is an electrolyte mineral already found in your skin that acts as a humectant that draws water into the skin. In addition to being hydrating, magnesium PCA also helps regulate cell turnover, which influences how your skin rids itself of dead skin cells. As we mentioned above, this is an important function towards healthy-looking and hydrated skin.

As part of our Atlantic Kelp & Magnesium Ocean Plastic Body Wash, Magnesium PCA helps restore the moisture balance of skin all over your body.

How to use: Start infusing your skin with moisture in the shower or bath and lock it in after bathing with the body cream for lasting nourishment.

Beta-Glucan

Beta-Glucans are sugars found in a variety of sources including yeast, bacteria, fungi, seaweed, and oats. Like hyaluronic acid and magnesium, beta-glucan is a humectant, which means it helps draw moisture to the skin. That’s not the only benefit, though. It also can boost the skin’s natural barrier to help reduce redness and irritation. Given these are two major side-effects of dryness, it is extremely useful in helping to soothe dryness and prevent it.

Our Overnight Recovery Balm is formulated with beta-glucan to be the ultimate dry skin solution. It soothes and alleviates signs of irritation from dryness, boosts the skin’s natural barrier to prevent dryness, and helps the skin retain moisture too.

How to Use: Beta-glucan is safe to use on your skin daily, so you can embrace Overnight Recovery Balm as part of your nightly routine. When your skin is in need of a little extra love, indulge in the Ultra Comforting Rescue Mask as an overnight mask and wake up to brighter, healthier-looking skin.

Now that you know what ingredients to look for and understand what they do, you can tailor your routine to address your dry skin concerns. Incorporating these powerful ingredients can have an incredible impact on skin, whether you have regularly dry skin or you are dealing with seasonal dryness. You don’t need to pick just one or two ingredients either. All of them work well together to hydrate, protect, and nourish your skin and help it function at its best.

Sources:

Beta Glucan for Skincare

Best Natural Ingredients for Dry Skin

Dry Skin Treatment

About the Author

Camille Poggi is a doctor in Pharmacy (PharmD.) and is passionate about skincare and how the skin works in general. She specializes in the cosmetic industry and worked for renowned companies in France like L’Oréal and Chanel before moving to London. After being a training manager for 4 years, Camille is at ease with explaining how products work in the skin and how to adapt her speech according to the audience.

She joined REN in January 2020 as International Training Manager and moved to the Research & Development team earlier this year to be the new Scientific Education Manager. A tailored-made role where she assesses and leads all technical communication and ensures scientific compliance is always met. She’s also involved in new product development from the earliest stages. Finding a way to create sustainable skincare products and making sure the message is properly delivered and understood is definitely a big challenge but also her favorite part working for REN.