Face Cream for Skiing
Do you use a face cream when skiing to prevent windburn or chapped skin on your face when skiing or snowboarding? You should!
Windburn is uncomfortable and can last for weeks. It is better to prevent windburn by protecting your face with a cold weather face protection cream such as a protective barrier repair cream.
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What is Windburn?
Windburn is a redness of the face caused by direct exposure to abrasion from the wind. In environments like mountaintops where wind can be cold, dry, and sheer, it is extremely likely to experience redness on the face from windburn if you do not take the right precautions. Windburn can take anywhere between a few days and a couple of weeks to dissipate depending on the natural dryness or oiliness of your skin. If you have dry skin, windburn is more likely to happen and typically more severe as well.
What is Chapped Skin?
Chapped skin is a way to refer to skin that has been drained of moisture, usually due to low humidity in an area. The most common place on the face for chapping to occur is the lips, but the cheeks, eyelids, and rest of your face are also susceptible to chapping.
It can be extremely helpful to find a humectant moisturizer with ingredients like glycerin alongside occlusive ingredients like many occlusive oils with saturated fats so your face does not chap. While skiing, your face is exposed not only to low humidity, cold, dry environments, but also a loss of water through sweating. When you sweat in dry environments, the moisture from your skin is wicked off by winds and dry air which can result in peeling, flaky chapped skin anywhere on the face.
Best Face Cream To Protect from Windburn while Skiing and Snowboarding
The best face cream to protect the skin from windburn while skiing or snow boarding is a barrier repair moisturizer that helps skin defend itself.
Jojoba oil in particular is great for use in cold weather.
Here is our favorite dermatologist-recommended face cream for skiing:
How to Protect Your Skin From Windburn and Cold When Skiing
Use a creamy cleanser and a barrier repair moisturizer and sunscreen to protect your skin.
Cleansers to prevent windburn
Face Cleansers to avoid windburn and chapped skin on the face
- Avoid low pH cleansers like hydroxyacids cleansers and salicylic acid cleansers
- Avoid cleansers with a strong foam
- Avoid facial scrubs
- Use a cleanser that is creamy that will strengthen your skin barrier.
Face Cream and Moisturizers to Prevent Windburn and Chapped Skin
Avoid moisturizers with large amounts of humectants such as glycerin and hyaluronic acid.
Avoid hyaluronic acid serums- these can pull moisturize from your skin.
Avoid retinoids - these can irritate your skin in dry climates.
Choose a barrier repair moisturizer such as one fofthese to protect your skin:
Is Vaseline the Best for Windburn?
For many years Vaseline has been sued to protect the face when skiing because it is a protective occlusive ingredient.
However, the popularity of petrolatum has plummeted because it is a petrochemical.
You can find natural and organic occlusive ingredients in oils.
Oils have soothing and protective fatty acids.
My favorite soothing and protective oil to prevent windburn is Argan oil.
Find a Skin Care Routine to Prevent a Windburned Face That is Right For You.
Some skin types are more likely to get windburn.
Using the best skin care routine for your skin type can help.
The first step is to take the skin type quiz to see what products can help protect your skin.
What skin care brand is best to prevent windburn? It depends upon your Baumann Skin Type!
Sunscreens for Skiing
Just because it is cold outside doesn't mean you are safe from sunburns or other damage from solar radiation. It is important to use the right sunscreen for your day on the slopes. Sunscreens with broad spectrum UV protection are always the best option. If you are going somewhere cold and dry, a creamy sunscreen with moisturizing ingredients can be essential to keeping your skin safe in the mountains. It is important to note that sunscreens need to be reapplied regularly throughout the day for maximum effectiveness in a frequency that depends on the SPF of the sunscreen. In higher altitudes, the effect of solar radiation can actually be more profound than in some low altitude locations because the atmosphere is thinner high up in the sky. For those reasons, it is crucial to have a good sunscreen at the ready when you're going skiing.
Other Ways to Protect Skin While Skiing
There are some mechanical ways to prevent damage on the skin while skiing that do not involve cosmetic skin care products. It is important to not only use the right creamy moisturizers, but to cover the face directly from wind abrasion. This can take a few forms; you can wear a scarf over your mouth and cheeks under your ski goggles, for example. There are a number of clothing options designed to protect the face while skiing, including windproof masks of many varieties.
Physically preventing wind chill on the face can help preserve some moisture on the skin that would otherwise be lost to the environment.
Similarly, gloves can be crucial to preventing outbreaks of inflammation or dryness based concerns such as eczema on the hands.
General Notes
Skiing may be a ton of fun, but suffering from chapped skin, windburn, and sunburns are not fun at all. To avoid wind burn and chapped skin on a ski trip, be sure to include a creamy moisturizer in your daily skin care regimen and to use a good broad spectrum sunscreen as well. Your skin type changes in drastically cold weather, becoming drier and more susceptible to dry skin concerns like eczema if you have it.
Occlusive ingredients that keep moisture on the skin such as jojoba oil, shea butter, sesame oil, avocado oil, or coconut oil are all great choices to prevent dry skin and wind burn while skiing. Nobody wants to show up to their apres-ski with red faces surrounding their goggle marks. Using the tips and tricks here, your skin should easily survive the cold weather on mountaintops.
Dr. Leslie Baumann MD, FAAD
How do you prevent wind burn while skiing?
A good creamy occlusive moisturizer that keeps wind off the face and moisture on the face is the best way to prevent windburn.
Do you need sunscreen while you're skiing?
Yes! Sun damage can still happen in the cold, so if you plan on spending the day outside for skiing, make sure you have a good broad spectrum sunscreen with a creamy finish that won't dry up on your skin during the day.