A Fall Body Care Routine That Stops Winter Itch Before It Starts

Hot water strips the lipids that hold moisture in. A shower that leaves your skin pink is a shower that guarantees you'll itch by evening. Warm, not hot, and short.

Apply body moisturizer within a minute of stepping out, on damp skin. You're trapping the water that's already there, which does far more than the same product on bone-dry skin an hour later.

OneSkin OS-01 body for the everyday version, or a rich African shea butter on elbows, knees and shins where it's worst.

Once a week is plenty in autumn. Twice is the ceiling. Scrubbing dry skin makes it drier and creates the micro-damage that turns into that raw, prickly feeling under a sweater.

The same barrier logic applies to the face — see why skin gets dry when the weather changes.