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[music] Hello, I’m Dr. Neal Schultz
[pause]
and welcome to DermTV.
Believe it or not, using less soap on your body in the wintertime can help
prevent dry, itchy skin. Let me explain. The function of oil on your skin
is to protect it and to lubricate it, but it also helps to hold in whatever
natural moisture that you have. While we have lots of oil glands on our
face, we have many fewer on our body, and the ones that we do have decrease
in number and make less oil as we get older. So, as we get older, we want
to strip less of that oil off so that we don’t allow more of our moisture
to evaporate and our skin to dry out. So that’s why, during the wintertime,
we want to use less soap on our body.
The first thing we can do is to use a milder soap or a less oil-stripping
soap, and those soaps are marked either as soaps for dry skin or for
sensitive skin. In addition to that, you want to use less soap and use it
less often. Let me explain that. The reason we use soap is to clean our
skin but, to clean it not only of dirt but really to get rid of bacteria
because it’s the bacteria that cause the odors that are unpleasant, and
those bacteria tend to live in closed places or moist places, so they live
in areas like our personal areas where there is less evaporation and more
moisture. We don’t have many bacteria living on open areas of our skin like
on your back or chest or on the larger areas of your arms or legs.
Certainly, everyday you want to use soap in your personal areas, on your
hands and on your face, but during the wintertime, if you’re using soap
once a week on the other areas like your back and chest and your arms and
legs, that’s more than enough because, in those areas, all you’re making is
sweat, and that sweat is just water and salt, and that water and salt
washes away with the water from your bath and shower or whatever soap
you’re using in the other areas. But there are no bacteria accumulating to
make odors in those open areas. So, during the wintertime, if you want to
have less dry, itchy skin, use less soap and use it less often.