Q. My face always gets very dry, sore and chapped in the winter.  What products do you suggest to prevent this?

A. You and most of the rest of us, we think, so we asked for advice from top facialist Abigail James, author of Love Your Skin (£20, Kyle Books), whose fans include such beauties as Melissa Hemsley and Arizona Muse – as well as us.

Abigail says the main thing is to support the lipid barrier of the skin so that it keeps the moisture in: ‘cold, wind and rain outside and then abrupt changes to central heating and fires inside literally zap the moisture from your skin, leaving it sensitive, dry and flaky.’

Here are our combined suggestions:

Swap to a non-stripping cleanser, such as a balm. (Note from us: Aromatherapy Associates Inner Strength Soothing Cleansing Balm/£40 for 100 ml, won the Gold Award in our recent Beauty Bible Awards; to read the testers Comments and/or buy online, click here).

Now layer up your skincare as you would your clothes: 

For day (and night too if you wish) apply a serum first. Abigail likes Niod Multi-Molecular Hyaluronic Complex/£38 for 30 ml, Dr Andrew Weil for Origins Mega Mushroom Skin Relief/£52 for 50 ml and Darphin Fibrogene Line Response Nourishing Serum/£60 for 30 ml.

Beauty Bible Award Winners include L’Occitane Divine Extract Ultimate Youth Face Serum/£80 for 30 ml and Evolve Organic Beauty Hyaluronic Serum 200/£30 for 30 ml.

Then the watchword is moisturise, moisturise, moisturise… Abigail suggests Weleda Skin Food/£9.95 for 75 ml, Dr Hauschka Rose Day Cream/£30.50 for 30 ml or Darphin Hydraskin Rich/£35 for 50 ml. 

Beauty Bible Award Winners are Super Facialist Vitamin C+ Skin Defence Daily Moisturiser/£16.99 for 75 ml, Temple Spa Moisture To Go Balancing Moisturiser/£36 for 50 ml and Clarins Multi-Active Jour/£42 for 50 ml.

At night, we love a good facial oil. The Beauty Bible Gold Award went to Trilogy CoQ10 Booster Oil/£31.50 for 20 ml which we are big fans of too.

If your skin is really dry, seal it in with a rich night cream such as Elemental Herbology Vital Glow Overnight Resurfacing Cream/£57 for 50 ml, which romped home with a fantastic average score in our Awards.

If you are in need to ‘total rescue’, Abigail has two products that have saved her own chapped skin: La Roche Posay Cicaplast Baume B5 Soothing Repair Balm SPF50/£14 for 100 ml and also Epaderm Cream, a real steal at £12.49 for 500 g, which was developed for dry skin on face and body by skin experts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.  ‘It’s literally magic and healed my psoriasis in two days,’ reports Abigail.

And just remember to wrap up warm...

Photo by Rodolfo Sanches Carvalho on Unsplash

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