This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Skin Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
There are a variety of likely causes of dry cracked skin – some of which are quite mild and easily dealt with, and some of which are serious medical conditions calling for specialized medical care.
On the less serious side, you may for example experience dry cracked skin if you bathe with extremely hot water – in which case simply switching to warm (rather than hot) water for bathing could sort out your problem. You could also experience dry cracked skin – mainly on the hands – as a result of working with materials which rob the skin of moisture, a typical example of this being soil. Therefore, by working on gardens or construction sites without sufficient protective attire, you can expect to suffer from dry cracked skin at some point. Staying in an environment which is acutely deprived of humidity could also lead to chronic skin dryness and the resultant cracking.
You might also experience dry cracked skin as a result of certain medical conditions – and these are what might be described as more serious causes of skin dryness and cracks. Dry cracked skin is for example one of the defining symptoms for eczema and psoriasis.
The correct remedy for dry cracked skin therefore depends on correctly addressing the underlying causes. If the underlying cause is a skin condition like eczema or psoriasis (which can be diagnosed by a skin disease doctor after assessing the other symptoms that go along with the skin dryness and cracking), an enduring answer to the problem would lie in addressing that underlying skin disease. To this end, you have the option of selecting either natural skin remedies or synthetic skin remedies. While natural skin remedies don’t usually take effect instantly like the synthetic therapies, they do tend to bring about far more enduring benefits and with lower possibility for obnoxious side effects often associated with synthetic skin remedies. If on the other hand the skin dryness and cracking is being caused by lifestyle factors like using hot water to bath or working with substances that de-moisturize the skin, you can take the necessary corrective action – which could be opting for cooler bath water or wearing protective covering when working with materials which are rough to the skin.
But even before you get to curing the underlying condition (if it happens to be a chronic one), there are a number of steps you can take to cope with the symptoms. You can for example, begin using a dry skin lotion. While the application of such a dry skin lotion might not treat the ultimate causes underlying your dry and cracked skin, it can at the very least help you to make the symptoms less obvious to others, as you take steps towards a more enduring remedy to the problem.
Erica Polaris is a prolific researcher and writer of skin care health and natural health products. She shares her research on dry cracked skin at her website which includes great tips and recommendations.
- Erica Polaris
