It can be extremely annoying when dry skin just doesn’t seem to want to go away. Even more annoying is when you can’t figure out why. Your skin seems unable to retain moisture, even with the amount of pampering you give it.
You wash carefully, put on lots of moisturizer, and it still feels tight, looks flaky, and refuses to be smooth. So what’s the deal? Is there some hidden factor that you’re missing?
It is very likely that you are. Many people take their usual shower, go through their usual facial routine, use their specific products, and never consider the single biggest thing they constantly put on their skin.
your water
Many people don’t even know what kind of water they have. Others didn’t even know they had a type of water. However, most people have a type of water that they would like to know about. In your case of continually dry skin, you’ll definitely want to find out.
In fact, there are two different types of water; hard and soft. If you find that your skin is still dry even after all the work you’ve put into it, the problem may lie in the fact that you have hard water and it’s helping to keep your skin dry.
Water that is considered hard means that the water contains a large amount of calcium, magnesium, and iron deposits. If you notice that your shower or bathtub is slowly but steadily building up deposits such as rust, soap scum, and limescale, you probably have hard water.
Not only will you clean your tub more often and possibly deal with clogs in your pipes, but you’ll also have skin that’s less likely to be smooth.
Hard water makes it more difficult for substances to dissolve in it efficiently, such as soap. When you then (which you may also realize is difficult to do) and then rinse, you may not be removing all of the soap from your skin.
This is not your fault, but the inability of the water to wash all the soap off your skin. The soap that remains on the skin helps dry it out, leaving it with flaky, itchy skin. The leftover soap can also help clog your pores, giving you dry skin and some additional skin irritations.
Because both hard water deposits and cleaning products remain on the skin, they can also cause the skin to become more irritated and more susceptible to damage, especially when it comes to facial skin and the fragile blood vessels that are below. Hard water can even make your skin thinner and aggravate skin conditions like rosacea.
Washing with hard water means that even with good products meant to help your dry skin, you still have to fight to get your skin in the condition you want.
If you have well water, you can easily get a water softener to help prevent hard water.
Soft water means there are less deposits in the water, which gives your soap better lathering power and makes it much easier to wash off, ridding your skin of excess soap after towel drying and giving you a better feel. opportunity to have softer and more hydrated skin.
However, many people get their water through public sources. If it does, then if your water isn’t soft yet, then you may have a bigger problem trying to get soft water.
Yes, you can’t do much to remedy the water coming out of your taps unless you want to opt to have a major installation of a water softening unit. If you can’t do this, you’ll have to learn to live with your hard water by using less soap and taking shorter showers, which gives you less access to your skin.
You could purchase water to use on your face to help prevent your skin from dealing with hard water and continue to use your current skin products.
Even if you can’t do anything about hard water, at least now you can have peace of mind knowing that your water was the final piece of the puzzle in drying out your skin.