As the temperature starts dropping down, you may start piling on the winter layers. While there’s nothing quite as cozy as being curled up by the fireplace in a warm winter sweater, as far as your skin is concerned, this cold weather can really be doing a number on your complexion.

Dryness, cracking, and pain are all associated with cold weather, but fortunately, it doesn’t need to be this way.

Here are a few tips to keep your skin feeling and looking great.

Avoid Hot Showers

As the weather begins to get colder and colder, you may find that you are tempted to turn up the heat whenever you take a shower. There’s nothing quite like a luxurious hot shower or bath to really warm your entire body up.

But, this can be very drying for your skin. As the hot water rushes down on your sensitive skin, it sucks out the moisture and can leave painful red marks.

Instead, use a medium warm shower and to prevent dryness, lather your skin with body lotion after lightly towel drying off. Your pores will still be open from the hot water so it’ll help the moisturizer work overtime to get your skin feeling its best.

Watch Your Thermostat

Likewise, as the temperature dips down, chances are, you’re turning up the heat in your house. While it’s understandable that you’d want to be comfortable, resist the urge to turn it up too high. You’re better off putting on a heavier sweater as far as your skin is concerned (and your savings account!).

As your heater begins to warm the air, it’s also going to significantly dry it out, leaving your skin parched and cracking.

Better yet, add a humidifier to your house to help add much-needed moisture into the air.

Choose Fragrance-Free Lotions

There’s no question that making sure you use a good body lotion is a must to keep your skin feeling its best. This said you want to make sure that whatever lotion you’re choosing to use is not going to aggravate your skin further. To avoid such aggravation, go fragrance-free.

The more natural the body lotion is, chances are, the better it will be for your skin and the less drying effects it’ll have.

Exfoliate Wisely

Exfoliation can be a great way to remove dead, dry skin cells and reveal healthy, new skin cells underneath. But you do need to be careful. If you exfoliate too often, this can actually be damaging to your skin and can lead to rashes.

You’ll want to exfoliate slightly less often come the winter months compared to the summer months. Try a gentle exfoliator once per week – or every two weeks.

And once again, after you exfoliate, you’ll want to make sure that you replace lost moisture with some high-quality body lotion.

Ideally, you should exfoliate after a warm bath when the skin is softer and supple.

So there you have the key tips to know and remember to keep your skin looking its very best over the coming winter season. Take care of your skin and you’ll experience less redness, less drying, and less cracked and very painful skin.

_{[Image via Getty]}