Let’s be clear: your skin is designed to lose water to evaporation…the key is losing the right amount. The dryness of the air has a big impact on how quickly moisture evaporates from skin. We call it the atmospheric humidity gradient, or more generally, the osmotic gradient. Between the seasonal humidity fluctuation and heaters, humidity can get as low as 10-15 in the winter. The drier the air, the stronger the barrier needed to maintain the proper hydration equilibrium. Let’s look at an example: Prune Fingers. So why exactly do your fingertips get wrinkly when you go in the bath? Guesses? Do your fingers shrivel because all the water is gone? Nope, they’re actually over-hydrated from soaking in water. The skin cells fill up like balloons, making skin expand and forcing it to form waves. You have too much skin for your fingers!
Next question: how long does it last? That’s the osmotic barrier in effect…the greater the differential between skin hydration and air humidity, the greater the stress on the barrier to maintain the status quo. Next time you go to the desert, unless you feed and water your skin properly, you’ll see that it will de-hydrate to match the dry air. And you don’t want that!
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