Winter is known to cause a number of beauty issues, especially for the skin. Chapped joints and lips are common, but faces are sometimes overlooked in the fight against winter dryness. Our face is often the most exposed part of our body in winter, which can lead to flaking and then breakouts when using too many moisturizers that end up clogging pores.
So how do you fight dry skin this winter without disrupting your face’s sensitive ecosystem? There is a new hack on TikTok called “skin flooding”. It comes with a few new tricks, but also proven techniques. The technique is simple to implement and doesn’t differ much from what many people already do as part of their regular skin care routine. Regardless of your skin type, skin flooding is a great technique to use if your skin needs hydration.
Skin flooding can help dry skin this winter.
So how do you pull off this trick of flooding your skin with moisture? Refinery29’s beauty director Jaqueline Kilikita explains the concept of skin flooding on TikTok, though there’s no official name for the trend yet. Basically, after cleansing your skin, you add a hyaluronic acid serum and then niacinamide on top of it, while the skin is still slightly damp, so don’t overdry your skin after cleansing. After these two serums, be sure to use a moisturizer, especially a cream with SPF during the day.
So what does all of this do for dry skin? As Healthline reports, hyaluronic acid is known to be a good hydration tool for the skin. The body automatically secretes hyaluronic acid, but this secretion is less important with age. The point of using products containing this acid is to give your body some of what it has lost. “In skincare products, hyaluronic acid is used as a humectant — a substance that helps the skin retain water,” board-certified dermatologist Fayne Frey, MD, told the website. administration.
Ms. Frey noted that moisturizing the skin with products containing this molecule also improves its appearance. However, care must be taken to use products containing less than 2% hyaluronic acid so that it is not too powerful and irritating. Likewise, niacinamide is a vitamin used to minimize pores, restore lost moisture, and even skin tone.
Why should we “flood” our skin in winter?
The reason this technique is called “skin flooding” is because moist skin, combined with products and the general goal of giving your face a large amount of moisture, is a kind of effect. of flooding. You soak up moisture in hopes of overcoming the dryness of winter. As Healthline explains, hyaluronic acid retains moisture very well, so the products used in the hack amplify its benefits.
Skin flooding is very similar to moisture sandwiching. According to Camille Styles, this trend is all about simply layering your skincare products to combat dry skin, adding a spritz of hydrating mist between each product. An optional step in the process is to block your products with an occlusive barrier, such as petroleum jelly, which is not recommended for people with oily or acne-prone skin. If you’re feeling particularly dry this winter, try skin flooding for yourself and reap the benefits of this moisture trend.
