No man wants to be troubled with rough, peeling, textured skin, and yet so many of us are. While uneven skin is a common issue, it is also an easy issue to rectify. This means that if you want smooth skin, it is entirely up to you to make it happen.
A Made Man is committed to being his best self, regardless of what it takes to do so. By committing yourself to certain changes that can rejuvenate and reinvent your complexion, you will be able to see great improvements to your skin.
First, we will be discussing the potential causes of your rough skin. After identifying the source of your issue, you can move on to making adjustments to your skincare routine that can provide you with immediate results.
The Cause of Rough Skin
There are several reasons that your skin may be rough or uneven such as sun damage, aging, or diet. In most cases, the reason for your textured skin may be that it is either dry or dehydrated.
Dehydrated skin is a skin condition that stems from lacking a sufficient amount of water. When you have a water deficiency, your body and skin will not function properly, resulting in a decline in your overall health.
This condition can result from poor lifestyle choices or external causes like cold weather or low humidity levels. Either way, your skin lacking in enough necessary fluids usually will present itself physically as irritation, peeling, itching, and cracking.
Understanding Your Skin Type
Dry skin shares many symptoms with dehydrated skin, though the two are different. For one thing, dry skin is not a skin condition but rather a genetically determined skin type. There are five different skin types — dry, oily, combination, sensitive, and normal.
Normal Skin
Normal skin has minimal to no sensitivities and very few identifiable features. It shows no signs of excess oil or dryness and is less prone to irritation and breakouts resulting in a generally smooth texture.
Sensitive Skin
Sensitive skin is the opposite. It responds poorly to various dyes, materials, fragrances, and ingredients. This skin type is vulnerable to external irritants and can easily become irritated if not treated with extreme care.
Oily Skin
Oily skin is recognizable for its excess oil. Naturally, oily skin has overactive sebaceous glands. The abundance of oil is most noticeable on the T-Zone, which consists of the chin, nose, and forehead resulting in a shiny appearance.
Combination Skin
Combination skin is a combination of dry and oily skin type. Typically, the T-Zone shows excess signs of oil, while all other areas of the skin exhibit signs of dryness.
Dry Skin
Finally, dry skin tends to appear dull and feel tight but is most notably identified by redness, scaling, and itching symptoms. Dry skin feels rough and may flake. In extreme cases, it may lead to irritation, reduced elasticity, or more visible fine lines.
Unlike oily skin, those with dry skin typically have a lower production of sebum which makes it more difficult for the skin to retain moisture. This lack of moisture is the direct cause of the unattractive and uncomfortable symptoms that accompany dry skin.
Though dry skin is a skin type, those struggling with long-term skin conditions may also struggle with dryness. Your skin may peel, burn, itch, and flake. External environmental factors like the weather can exacerbate these symptoms, sometimes resulting in so much cracking that the skin begins to bleed.
Test Your Oil Levels
To determine whether your skin type is dry, you can test for traces of oil. Cleanse your face and wait 30 minutes.
After half an hour has gone by, use a blotting sheet to test for oil on different areas of your face. Press your blotting sheet against your skin and see how much oil was absorbed. If there is very minimal or no oil picked up by your blotting sheets after testing the entirety of your face, you have dry skin.
Though oily skin can also struggle from dehydration, it is possible that a different skin type will receive these same results from the oil test, meaning the issue is not dryness but rather dehydration.
To determine whether your textured skin stems from dryness or dehydration, you can try the pinch test. Position yourself in front of a mirror and pinch your cheek. If your cheek changes shape from the pressure and wrinkles, your textured skin is being caused by dehydration.
If your cheek retains its shape, your issue is dryness.
How To Get Smooth Skin
Despite struggling with roughly textured skin, it is easy to achieve smooth skin with a bit of self-discipline. Applying certain practices every single day will result in immediate improvements to your skin’s tone and texture.
Moisturize
Moisturizer is perhaps the most important element for making your skin smooth. While your body is technically built to lubricate itself through its sebaceous glands and sebum production, several factors may require you to provide your skin with additional moisture.
As already mentioned, these factors can range from dehydration to dryness to diet to damage from the sun. Regardless of what factor is responsible for your skin’s deterioration, moisturizer is essential for both repairing the skin and defending it against these risks by strengthening your moisture barrier.
You should be applying your moisturizer on a daily basis.
Regardless of how extensive or minimal your skincare routine is, moisturizers should always be part of it. Apply your moisturizer every morning and every night before bed. It is also essential that the product you are using contains safe and beneficial ingredients that support your skin rather than harm it even more.
We recommend using MadeMan’s The Refresher.
The Refresher is an all-in-one moisturizer that uses anti-foaming additives derived from silica to smooth out your skin, retain moisture, and provide you with a hydrated appearance. Our moisturizer is fast-absorbing and uses complex nutrients to restore and repair your skin.
Our Ingredients
It is water-based and uses all-natural ingredients. Here are some of the most beneficial ingredients incorporated into The Refresher:
Chicory Root: Chicory root is a proprietary active ingredient that has lifting and lightening effects. Chicory root is especially good for anti-aging and maintaining a smooth and youthful appearance by increasing your collagen production.
Castor Seed Oil: Castor seed oil contains both natural fatty acids and essential oils that can help to restore the skin’s natural moisture balance. This ingredient penetrates into your skin and increases collagen production, which, in turn, relieves dry patches and makes the skin softer.
Vitamin C: Vitamin C is especially good for improving your skin’s tone. The vitamin can brighten your dull, blotchy skin and helps to reduce the appearance of sun damage and depigmentation. Vitamin C can also act as protection against irritation and inflammation.
Indian Ginseng Extract: Indian ginseng extract is used to protect your skin from external irritants. In particular, it is useful for combating the light from the screens on your electronic devices. This can eliminate signs of fatigue and provide you with a healthy glow.
For a full list of ingredients, click here.
Apply Sunscreen
Every day after applying your moisturizer, it is necessary that you use sunscreen.
As previously mentioned, sun damage is one of the leading causes of textured skin. Photoaging is premature aging of the skin that occurs when you are exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet light without protection. Photoaging can result in age spots, rough texture, fine lines, and less elasticity.
The sun’s UVA and UVB rays can cause DNA changes meaning that they are capable of damaging all three of the skin’s layers. The epidermis, dermis, and subcutis can all be altered for the worse but damage to the dermis, which contains your skin’s collagen and elastin, is particularly harmful to the skin’s texture.
When it comes to selecting your sunscreen, you have the choice of using either mineral or chemical sunscreen. Both are effective but work differently to perform the same function of protecting your skin.
Mineral sunscreen uses its ingredients to block and scatter the sun’s rays. Chemical sunscreen uses its ingredients to absorb the sun’s light. Both methods have been proven successful at preventing damage.
It is important that you select a sunscreen with an SPF of at least 30. This will ensure that your sunscreen is strong enough to defend your skin from ultraviolet rays. You should also be using a broad-spectrum sunscreen. Broad-spectrum sunscreens protect against both UVA and UVB rays, which can both do damage, as we have already discussed.
Apply a nickel-sized dollop of sunscreen every morning and reapply throughout the day as necessary.
Boost Water Intake
Staying hydrated is key to achieving smooth skin. The easiest way to do this is by increasing your water intake. It is recommended that men drink, on average, 15.5 cups of fluids a day. However, you are welcome to meet this recommendation by consuming foods rich in water.
Foods that are good sources of water include:
- Cucumber
- Iceberg Lettuce
- Watermelon
- Celery
- Tomatoes
- Zucchini
- Spinach
All of these foods contain at least 85% of water and other beneficial nutrients that can improve your overall health and appearance. Remembering to drink enough water every day and maintaining a healthy diet is a convenient way to restore the texture of your skin.
Conclusion
There are many ways for your skin’s texture to become rough. Whether it is dehydration or dryness, it can sometimes feel like textured skin is unavoidable. However, this is not the case.
There are ways for your skin to be both protected and treated to improve your overall look and feel. Much of this pertains to how you treat your body on a daily basis. By moisturizing, applying sunscreen, and hydrating daily, you can get smooth skin quickly and with ease.
Sources:
[Skin hydration and hydrating products] | PubMed
Mechanisms and Management of Itch in Dry Skin | PubMed
