Helping to Combat Dry Skin, Hair and Lips

How to's to combating dry hair, skin and lips on a budget. 

Well if you're anything like me and your face is dried up, your hair feels like straw and your lips crack and bleed to no end in the colder months, then here's a few simple DIY tips for getting some moisture back into your life and a few of my favourite products to buy to also help deal with the disastrous dryness that plagues my life. 

Lips

My lips are constantly cracked and cut up and sometimes bleed they get so bad, so here's few things I do to combat that:

•  The first is a home made sugar lip scrub, its nothing fancy, but in the cold months it really does the trick of exfoliating and moisturising my lips.  You can do this one of two ways, you can mix up a little bit everyday, or you can make a bit more and put it in an empty lip gloss tub to use for everyday.  Now I don't have any empty lip gloss tubs, and I couldn't be bothered buying a whole travel bottle set just to get the little tub so I mix up a little scrub every day.  I just use about a pea size amount of regular sugar and mix it with a little bit of coconut oil or petroleum jelly (vaseline) I put this on every night before I go to bed this winter and it really makes a difference to my lips. Usually they crack up and bleed countless times, but since I've done this they've only done this two or three times.  If you want to make a lip scrub to keep in a tub I would reccommend using about 2-3 teaspoons of both the coconut oil/petroleum jelly and sugar mix, and if you're really adventurous you can mix a little of your favourite lipbalm/chapstick/lipstick for some added colour and flavour.  I really want to try the LUSH lip scrubs, but I'm poor so I just make my own!

• I also love Carmex Lip Balm in the squeezable tube, it's actually my favourite product for cracked lips! (So much so that I don't actually have any left to add a photo of it into this blog!) But trust me if you need a quick fix for dry, sore, chapped lips, Carmex is definitely one to buy, because it really does work, and anyone I know that uses it swears by it as their chapped lip saviour. 

• It's probably an obvious one, but Vaseline is a really good product for dry chapped lips! My favourites are  the one with aloe vera and the one with cocoa butter, which tastes incredible too!

Skin

Dry skin can be a nightmare to deal with I get it mainly on my face, my hands and my arms and legs.  Here's the products and little tips and tricks I use to help my dry skin:

• Sanctuary products; I LIVE by these, the body butter is the most incredible thing I've ever used, it really helps with my dry skin and it smells soooooo good! The only downside I find is that its quite thick and sticky so it takes ages to dry into your skin and then your left standing around half naked in the cold until it dries enough that putting your clothes on is actually possible.  I also love the exfoliating body scrub as well.  To truly combat dry skin, you need to be prepared to pamper yourself regularly, and by that I mean exfoliating your skin to get rid of dead skin cells and moisturising it afterwards.  Trust me take care of your skin while you're young, your skin will thank me later when you're old but you still have great skin.  

• For my face I typically will use Neutrogena Face Scrubs  there are a few different ones I will use depending on how my skin is acting up, I love the visibly clear one at the minute because I have been plagued with blackheads, and it is really good for clearing them, but I would recommend any of their facial scrubs, I've used practically all of them, and they are all good in their own way. 
  

• Another exfoliating scrub I use is one I've used for years for dry skin, I mix a pea sized amount of salt with a euro sized amount of virgin olive oil in (clean) hands and scrub it onto my face, I'll leave it there for about 5 mins and then wash it off.  I don't remember where I heard about this or anything, but I've been doing it for years when my skin needs a moisture boost and it really does the trick! I've also started to try this out with coconut oil because of the trend in using coconut oil for everything. But coconut oil can be quite expensive, and on a student budget it can sometimes be hard to afford.  Either of the two oils will work wonders for dry skin, and the salt will exfoliate at the same time, so regardless of which you decide to use your dry skin will clear up nicely. 
• For moisturiser I tend to stick with the Simple range of moisturisers, but I'm finding lately they're not doing much for my skin as they used to, so if anyone would like to recommend a new moisturiser to me that's not too harsh on the skin I'd love to know!

Hair

I've been dying my hair blonde since I was about 14 or 15 so my hair is dried out as eff, but recently I've found a few things that are really helping with adding moisture into my dead dried out hair. 

• Bed Head by Tigi - Urban Antidotes, the shampoos are quite expensive, but reasonable when you see what a good job they do.  You can buy them in salon services shops, online on Cloud 10 and even TK MAXX stock these beauties (that's where I got the large bottles of it below!) so they are very accessible to get, and they work, like really really well.  They have three strengths 1- Re-energise, 2 - Recovery and 3 - Resurrection, 1 is for normal hair that needs a lift in moistire, 2 is for dried out dyed hair that needs a little TLC, while 3 is a total moisture overhaul. I have previously used number 2, and I'm now trying number 1, and I'm very pleased with both (but with my hair type I'll have to go back to 2) I haven't tried 3 as I don't think my hair is that dry, but if you do then I would definitely reccommend trying them!  They smell great and they really do make your hair more full of life and less dry, so the great smell is really only a bonus! And they are definitely worth the investment because the large bottles last for AGES!

• Another TIGI product I cannot get enough of is Bed Head After Party it's perfect for girls with curly, frizzy, fried hair.  It claims to create "silky, smooth, shiny, healthy looking hair"  and it does not disappoint, it makes your hair feel sooo smooth and it helps aid in the styling process too! Again like all Bed Head products it smells incredible! Well worth the purchase! 

• I also swear by putting coconut oils and argan oils in my hair after I wash it, mostly just in the ends as it does leave roots looking awful greasy.  At the minute I've been trying out this little de-frizzing oil by Creightons called Frizz no More every second time I wash my hair to see if it is better or worse than just using my coconut/argan oils.  So far I don't really notice much difference it's doing pretty much the same job, and it was only like €2 in my local pharmacy so its a steal too!

Hope this was helpful to all you ladies out there suffering in dryness,

Until the next time, 

MK xo