Hydrating winter skin

How does winter treat your skin? It makes my face go crazy-dry. I get dry patches around my face and dry, red ones around my eyes. I experienced the same problem when I went over to Tokyo during their most recent winter.

I wasn't sure if it meant I should start using an eye cream, and I didn't really want to step into the world of eye creams: there are so many out there, how do I pick an effective, reasonably priced product?

After doing a bit of research online, I decided to give organic rosehip oil a go. It's meant to be a really amazing product, according to Zoe Foster, a former beauty editor. Lots of people rave about it. There are some great brands you can get at the chemist, including Trilogy and Natio. I ended up buying A'kin because it came with a dropper, which means it's easier to control how much you use, and it was two-for-the-price-of-one...win!

I'm pretty happy with it: it's reasonably priced and is a simple product. I like that it's an organic oil: sounds a lot less complicated than an eye cream or serum.

My skin actually got even drier after a few days of using the rose hip oil (although my cheeks felt very smooth), so I decided to look for a moisturiser to wear on top. I tried some of my mum's Lancôme cream, and it stung my face like crazy :( I also didn't like that it was in a jar. I think moisturisers in jars are less hygienic because you dip your fingers into the product and it gets exposed to air.

I decided to give Avène's Skin Recovery Cream a go, to wear on top of the rosehip oil. It did sting a little bit around the eyes. I don't why I just didn't stick to sorbelene to begin with.

My regular face moisturiser is Redwin Light Facial Moisturiser.

So here's my current battle plan for dry, winter skin:

Mornings
Cleanse as per usual.
Apply rosehip oil.
Apply sunscreen.

Throughout the day
Apply Avène cream as needed.

Nights
Cleanse as per usual.
Apply rosehip oil. Let it soak in for a while and apply Avène or Redwin afterwards. Unfortnately, the moisturiser stings, but the rosehip oil doesn't.

Seems to be working so far!

So what's your battle plan for dry skin? Are you on the rosehip oil bandwagon?