Dry Skin – What are the Symptoms and Treatments for Dry Skin?

December 2, 2020

Naturally, the human skin can be grouped into various classes. Among others, there’s oily skin, dry skin, and scaly skin. People who have oily skin do not really have to worry about the treatment and symptoms of dry skin. Most likely, they’ll never have this condition. However, if you have the particularly unnerving challenge of managing dry, uncomfortable skin, getting treatment is a priority.

Now, there is a rather wide range of possible treatments you can use for dry skin. This is especially so because of the numerous advancements that have become prominent in the cosmetic industry. However, what happens when you don’t even know you suffer from dry skin? Worse, what happens if you don’t know how to go about dealing with this skin problem?

Luckily for you, you don’t have to worry about the answers to those questions too much. Among other things, we’ll detail all the symptoms of dry skin. Over the course of this detailed post, we will also highlight the best treatment for dry skin in Toronto.

What Exactly is Dry Skin?

Dry skin is a fairly uncomfortable condition that’s often characterized by scaling, cracking, and itching. Alternately referred to as xerosis in medical terms, it can happen to anyone for any number of reasons. However, some people are more prone to getting it than others based on lifestyle choices and genetics.

While dry skin can be a fairly mild condition, it can also be incredibly severe, leading to several unwanted complications. When dry skin becomes severe and requires “drastic” forms of treatment, it is called dermatitis. There are several different types of it, but we’ll look at three of the most common kinds.

Three Major Types of Dermatitis

Knowing the cause of your dry skin is the first step to getting help. Of course, the best place to get help is through a consultation with a skin care expert in Toronto. However, before that visit to a medical aesthetician, here are some facts to know:

Contact dermatitis

Contact dermatitis is a type of dry skin condition that develops when your body is reacting to something. This type of dermatitis can be further broken down into two:

Allergic contact dermatitis: This type of dermatitis can show up when you accidentally (or otherwise) expose your skin to something you’re allergic to. An example, depending on your allergies, is nickel.
Irritant contact dermatitis: This type of dermatitis occurs when your skin comes in contact with an irritating chemical substance like bleach.

Atopic dermatitis

It is alternately referred to as eczema and often causes scaly and dry patches to appear on your skin. Young children are the most prone to this type of dermatitis.

Seborrheic dermatitis

This is a peculiar type of dry skin condition that ironically comes along when your body produces too much oil. It is most common in infants and can be categorized by the appearance of red, dry, scaly rashes. The most affected area is often the scalp.

What Are The Causes of Dry Skin?

In the three major types of severe dry skin conditions we discuss above, the reasons behind them were pretty clear. However, having covered those, other things can still cause your skin to dry out, even if you don’t have a skin disease like dermatitis. A few of them include:

Weather

As you very well know, Canada experiences drastic weather changes at different points in the year. During the summer, there is a significant amount of moisture in the air. The increased sunlight encourages your skin to produce a fairly healthy amount of necessary fluids.

However, during winter, things are drastically different. The sun sets much earlier, and there’s a substantially lower amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Under conditions like this, it is quite normal to need treatment for dry skin in Toronto.

Excessive amounts of dry heat

If you have normal skin that’s perfectly balanced between oily and dry, that’s an excellent thing. However, if you expose yourself to too much dry heat, you’ll be setting yourself up for dry skin and all the discomfort that comes with it.

Now, dry heat can come from any number of sources. Among others, it may be from central heating systems, space heaters, wood-burning stoves, and even fireplaces. While they may provide a level of comfortable warmth when needed, they also reduce humidity and cause dry skin.

Harsh detergents and soaps

Because dirt often comes in the form of oil and grease, many soaps are designed to get rid of oil as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, some soaps have a little too much of the oil-removing component — Sodium laureth sulfate (SLS).

As such, when you use them for bathing, they remove all the dirty oil and grease from your body. Then, they go further to strip you of your natural oils. When you use this type of soap consistently, you’re likely to get dry skin.

Harsh detergents generally function the same way. However, because you’re not using them for bathing, they may only affect your hands.

Hot showers and baths

Water is a natural cleansing agent, and it’s even more skilled at the job when it is hot. While its effects are not as drastic as harsh soaps and detergents, hot water will slowly take away the oil in your skin.

So, it stands to reason that if you take hot showers and baths for too long, you are likely to suffer from dry skin. Another factor that is closely related is swimming too often in highly chlorinated pools.

Age and medical history

The older you get, the less amount of oil (sebum) your body can produce. Consequently, you’re likely to develop dry skin as you grow older. Additionally, if you have a medical history of dry skin in your family, the chances are you’ll have the condition too.

Signs and Symptoms of Dry Skin

Most of the time, the best treatment for dry skin is a function of your unique symptoms. Thankfully, many of the symptoms of dry skin are visible and can be easily spotted. Among other things, they include:

Your skin will feel tighter than usual. To be a bit more specific, it will feel as though your skin is stretched too thin over your body.
Your skin will feel and look rough, wrinkly with misshapen lines darting across in unappealing patterns.
You’re likely to experience mild to severe itching that may worsen and even lead to sores.
You’ll start getting flakes or scales across your skin. This symptom of dry skin may only be a slight problem for some people. For others, it can be quite severe.
Your skin will look ashy or grey.
You’re likely to get deep cracks in your skin that may even lead to bleeding. This often happens to the lips during winter.
Your skin will become red.

What Are the Possible Treatment Options for Dry Skin?

There are several options on the table if you’re looking to get treatment for dry skin. They are:

Simple lifestyle changes

We’ve already established that dry skin can be caused by many things you may be doing. As such, if you want to get back your healthy, radiant, oily skin, you may have to make a few lifestyle changes.

Some of these life changes include:

Keeping your shower time at 10 minutes or less.
Avoiding hot water for showers and baths unless absolutely necessary.
Using moisturizing soaps instead of harsh alternatives that deplete your skin’s oils.
Applying a moisturizer right after showering or bathing.
Patting your skin with a soft towel to dry instead of rubbing it violently.
Drinking lots of water.
Using a humidifier at home to prevent excessive dryness in the air.
Resisting the urge to scratch itchy dry patches.

Emollients

An emollient is a substance that prevents water from evaporating. They often come in the form of gels, lotions, creams, etc. If you’re looking to treat dry skin, you can invest in a good emollient. Afterwards, you merely have to rub it over your skin often to ensure your body recovers from the dryness. One of the most popular ones on the market is Vaseline.

However, if you want to go for something stronger, you need to consult your skincare therapists first. They’ll be in the best position to let you know how often to use it, whether you’re allergic or not, and other important details.

Aquapure facial

This is arguably the best treatment for dry skin you can get in Canada. It is a four-in-one treatment option that helps you get back the vibrance in your skin with relative ease.

Best Treatment for Dry Skin in Toronto: Aquapure Facial

Firstly, Aquapure facial is a non-invasive hydradermabrasion treatment that helps you treat a number of skin issues. It takes care of uneven skin tone, excess oil, fine lines, wrinkles and, most importantly, dehydrated or dry skin.

How Does Aquapure Facial Work?

Aquapure is a medical-grade device that performs the task of rejuvenating your skin with four different treatments. They are:

Aquapeel

This stage of the facial treatment is geared towards the exfoliation and removal of dirt/impurities from your skin. Alongside that, it also helps to rid your skin of dead cells while promoting hydration and rejuvenation.

Electroporation

This is an Aquapure facial treatment that works via the conduction of stable electric currents. Once conducted, these controlled currents will aid the transdermal delivery of nutrients across the skin.

Micro-current

This treatment stimulates the healthy circulation of blood through your skin and provides a lifting and tightening effect along the way. Alongside that, it promotes the regeneration of elastin and collagen in your skin.

If you’re not familiar with either of those terms, you should know they both have a huge part to play in the elasticity and nourishment of your skin. When they’re under-generated, it will leave your skin looking dry, saggy and loose.

Cooling/heating

This part of the treatment uses heating energy to keep your skin looking properly toned and very firm. Alongside that, it uses cooling energy to improve your skin repair levels while reducing the number of wrinkles and fine lines you have.

What are the Benefits of Aquapure Facial Treatments?

Choosing to get Aquapure facials in Toronto as a treatment for dry skin is a smart choice. Here’s why:

It solves multiple problems at a time

As outlined in the way Aquapure facial for dry skin works, you can kill multiple birds with one stone. That is, even though your primary aim is to rejuvenate your skin and get back natural oiliness, you can get so much more.

Among others, you can have your fine lines and wrinkles reduced to give you a younger-looking face. Alongside this, you’re very likely to get a deep-cleansing of your skin as you hydrate and moisturize with Aquapure Facials. In reality, the number of other things you’re gaining alongside the treatment for dry skin makes Aquapure Facials worth your money.

It caters to a wide range of skin types and tones

Ordinarily, when you’re trying to go through certain cosmetic processes, you’re advised based on your skin tone. For example, it’s often more difficult to conduct laser hair removal for some skin tones compared to others.

However, with Aquapure Facials for dry skin, you needn’t worry about that. Generally, Aquapure Facials are designed to help everybody get rid of dry skin — regardless of skin tone and hair colour.

Aquapure Facial results appear very quickly

With other methods of treatment for dry skin, you will have to exercise patience and remain consistent for a while. Only then will you be able to see results. However, Aquapure facial results are visible almost immediately after your treatment.

This treatment requires little to no downtime

For this treatment, you only need to visit your medical aesthetician’s office. However, you really don’t have to stay there. Immediately after your treatment, you can continue going about your day as you normally would.

What are The Potential Side Effects of Aquapure?

This method is a very safe way to treat dry skin and other skin-related conditions. As such, there are hardly any side effects. Some people have reported redness or slight swelling. However, these cases are incredibly rare. Apart from being rare, they often disappear shortly after they make their first appearance.

The good news is that the risks of these side effects can be toned down significantly. One great way to do that is by getting your treatment for dry skin in Toronto from a qualified medical aesthetician. Only a professional can go about the procedure with enough care, attention and expertise to prevent any complications.

Does Aquapure Facial Hurt?

While getting Aquapure Facials, the chances are you’ll feel a slight discomfort. This may be for any number of reasons. Alongside that, some people have reported a slight irritation after the treatment. But, these are very mild challenges. They’re certainly not as bad or as painful as some other facial treatment options for dry skin.

How Long does Aquapure Facial Treatment Take?

The process of the treatment itself isn’t a long one. In just about thirty minutes, you should be done with your treatment. However, if the treatment area is quite large, you may have to spend a bit more time in the treatment room. This is, of course, excluding the time your doctor will need to prepare for the treatment procedure.

In Conclusion

Dry skin is as discomforting as it is unappealing. It’s even worse when you don’t readily have the required information to take on the problem. Thankfully, we’ve detailed all you need to know about dry skin, including how to treat it.

However, it isn’t enough to just read about it. You should take the first step by checking out our medical spa in Toronto for effective treatments for dry skin. Here at Canada MedLaser, we offer effective Aquapure Facial treatments to help you get rid of dry skin. Speak to any one of our qualified medical aestheticians today!

Book Free Consultation

Can't find what you are looking for?

No worries, we are here to help you.