why is my skin still dry after moisturizing?

why does my skin still feel dry after lotion?

one of the first things i tell people is to turn the bottle around.
look at the ingredients.

most traditional lotions contain a lot of water. that's part of what makes them feel light, spread easily and disappear quickly into your skin.

and there isn't anything inherently wrong with that.

but when your skin is really dry, sometimes that kind of light moisture simply isn't enough anymore.

that's the difference i want you to understand.

wet isn't the same thing as nourished.

think about what happens when you lick dry lips

this is probably the easiest way i know to explain it.

your lips feel dry, so you lick them.
for a second, they feel better.
they're wet.
then that moisture disappears.

so you lick them again.
and again.

pretty soon your lips can feel even drier. flaky. cracked. red. irritated.

you keep giving them wetness because they feel dry, but wetness isn't necessarily what they need.

now think about what happens when you put a really dense lip butter on instead.
avocado butter. mango butter. nourishing oils and waxes.

you can feel the difference.

i've had customers come into our shop for years with lips that are an absolute mess. then they'll come back amazed by how different their lips feel after using our lip butter.

so imagine that same idea across the rest of your body.

your lips give you this tiny little place where it's easy to understand the difference between temporarily making something wet and giving dry skin dense, nourishing care.

lotion, body oil and body butter don't do the same job

this is where skincare gets confusing.

we call everything “moisturizer,” so it's easy to assume every moisturizer is basically doing the same thing.

it isn't.

if your lotion works beautifully for you, wonderful.
i'm not here to take something away that's working.

but if you're applying lotion every day and wondering why your skin still feels dry, itchy, rough or uncomfortable shortly afterward, that's useful information.

your skin may be asking for something richer.

what does water-free body care do differently?

our body butter doesn't contain water.

there isn't water added to make a bigger jar of product.

what you're putting on your skin is concentrated care.

ingredients chosen because when i'm working with really dry skin, i want something dense and nourishing.

that's what i mean when i say:

dense nutrition beats watered-down hype.

i don't want to give dry skin more volume of product.
i want to give it concentrated care.

→ learn more about our water-free ingredients

i also care about what we're leaving out

there's another reason i chose to make our body care this way.

if i'm putting something all over my body every single day, i want to understand what's in it and why it's there.

and because our formulas are water-free, we don't need the emulsifying system a traditional lotion needs to keep water and oil mixed together.

i don't think caring for dry, uncomfortable skin needs to be complicated.

i want dense plant oils and butters.
ingredients i understand.
pure essential oils when we're using aroma.
and nothing there just because that's how conventional lotion is usually made.

especially when someone's skin already feels dry, itchy, red or irritated, my instinct has always been pretty simple:

give it what it needs without piling on things it doesn't.

that's how i've formulated hellomellow from the beginning.

should you use body oil or body butter for dry skin?

you don't necessarily have to choose one or the other.
they have different jobs.

if your skin generally feels dry and you want a daily neck-to-toe step, start with body oil on damp skin after your shower.

body butter is your richer dry-skin step.
use it on dry skin wherever your skin is asking for more.

and if your skin needs both?
use both.

oil gives you your daily all-over care. butter gives the driest places extra attention.

and if you're already giving your skin daily care and certain places still aren't getting what they need, that doesn't necessarily mean what you're using is bad.

you may need another kind of care.

that's why i created a routine instead of one magic jar.

how do you know when your skin needs something different?

feel it.
seriously.

put your hands on your skin.

notice what you're actually experiencing instead of automatically reaching for the same bottle you've used for ten years.

does your lotion feel wonderful when you put it on, but your skin is asking you for more an hour later?

that's information.

your skin isn't failing you. it's talking to you.

you don't have to fight it.
you can listen to it.

start with the driest place

you don't have to throw away everything in your bathroom and start over.

pick the driest place on your body.
maybe it's your shins.
maybe it's your elbows.
maybe it's your hands.
maybe it's your heels.

give that one area richer care.

use a dense body butter there consistently and pay attention.

touch your skin.
notice how it feels.
notice the texture.
notice what changes.

give it a different experience long enough to see how it responds.

because sometimes the answer to “why is my skin still dry after moisturizing?” is actually pretty simple.

your skin changed.
and your care can change with it.

shop body butter

take good care of yourself,

♥ tracy