Dry Skin; Try Checking Your Tap Water!
I receive a lot of questions about skincare daily via my blog. When I first began with the blog my idea was to share my knowledge about skincare with other people. Now that I have been busy for almost two years with it, it seems like a rather arrogant thought to have had. Because I steal a lot from people who have responded to my blog. I get to know about new products, I am also sometimes confronted with the fact that ‘what is written in theory’ doesn’t always have the same outcome ‘in practice’ and am regularly asked to find out about things which I don’t know very much about myself. For instance this story about tap water…
Hard tap water. Hard for your skin…
Recently, I again received such a nice question. It was from someone with extremely dry skin who, even though she looked after her skin, still had problems with it. She wondered if this could be to do with hard water. I looked into it straight away. And indeed – to make things even more complicated – hard water can make skin, which is sensitive to it, feel like sandpaper. What actually happens with your skin is exactly the same as what happens to your shower head, your teapot, the sides of the bath and the pipes from the washing machine (if you are to believe the advert….). Soap cannot dissolve very well in hard water and just like the minerals in hard water, leaves deposits behind.
Well these soap deposits really are very irritating to your skin! Over time all of this will affect the barrier function of your skin, whereby you’ll lose more moisture and your skin will feel dry and rough (besides this, hard tap water will make your hair feel less soft and more difficult to comb).
To do!
Because the water board are unlikely to be very sensitive to your argument that your hair doesn’t look its best and your skin gets so dry from the hard water, you need to approach it in another way. If you have dry skin and you suspect that the tap water quality isn’t so good, you need to then make sure then that you use a very mild non foaming Cleanser and rinse it off thoroughly with luke warm water. It is a good idea to wipe your face afterwards with a Toner on some cotton wool. If your skin is dry, it is enough to just wash with a Cleanser in the evenings. While your skin is still damp apply a product. If this really doesn’t make it better and there are no other reasons for it, consider buying a tap water softener. You may have to save up initially but in the long run it will save you a lot of jars of expensive cream!!!
Regards Jetske
Research Physician Cosmetic Dermatology
You can also read the blogs:
‘Help with Choosing Your Cleanser’
‘Such Dry Skin’
‘Make Your Own Mask’
‘Winter; What Does It Do to Your Skin?’
‘Acne Improves in the Sun? A Myth’.