Like I said a few days ago, I am a big believer in a multi-pronged approach to avoid winter dryness. That said, avoiding winter dryness begins with avoiding drying body washes. I know I am starting to sound like a broken record, but using products with sulfates or alcohol while you shower will basically preempt all post-shower moisturizing.
I recommend using cold process soaps in winter as they are very mild and gentle. I find most cold process soaps moisturizing but there are a few that are even that much more moisturizing: DistilledRose Cocoa Butter soap, Rosecreek Soap Honey Crème and Wild Oats soaps, Wylde Ivy’s Pure Butter and African Vanilla Bean soaps, Chagrin Valley’s Honey Butter, Winter Survival and Goatsmilk, Honey and Oats soaps.
If parting from your liquid body wash is impossible, check out Coconut Hut’s Body Wash and Skindecent’s 3 in 1 Oasis. Both products are sulfate free and derive most of their suds from saponified coconut oil.
Exfoliation is the second, but equally important, step in a non-drying shower. I prefer sugar scrubs over salt scrubs. I am always trying new scrubs, but I always come back to some tried and true favorites, namely Skindecent’s Sheen Appeal (lotion-y), Body Polisher (oily sugar scrub) and Bermuda Beach Smoother (classic sugar and oil scrub but not as oily as the Polisher) and Cleanse Your Soul’s Behemoth scrub, which is a dry but fragrant sugar scrub.
Tomorrow, butters for deep moisturizing.
P.S. I just realized many of the super moisturizing soaps I recommended above are currently sold out. I swear it is not because I cleaned out all those etailers. Rosecreek is making a new batch of Honey Creme, and Wild Oats is one of her staples, so both should be back soon, and the same goes for DistilledRose Cocoa Butter and Wylde Ivy’s Pure Butter. Because cold process soaps are made in small batches, they are sometimes temporarily unavailable when one batch sold out and another is still curing.
General Disclosures & Disclaimers
