Is your skin dry?

[Chas]

Probably.  The relative humidity in your house or workplace is likely the reason.

For instance, this morning here in eastern MA, the temperature is 11°F  with RH 37%.

Bring that air inside and heat it to 72°F, the RH will be 3.47%.  That's drier than any desert on  Earth.

I've been boiling water and managed to get the RH up to 35%.  A healthy indoor RH is 30% - 60%.

[Cavebear]

Probably.  The relative humidity in your house or workplace is likely the reason.

For instance, this morning here in eastern MA, the temperature is 11°F  with RH 37%.

Bring that air inside and heat it to 72°F, the RH will be 3.47%.  That's drier than any desert on  Earth.

I've been boiling water and managed to get the RH up to 35%.  A healthy indoor RH is 30% - 60%.

I'm a living Leyden Jar. So I have a humidifier in the central air flow. And all-cotton clothes and all-cotton sheets and blankets. I used to be able to touch my bedroom fluorescent lamp and get it lit dimly. I shocked my cats stroking them. I keep trays of water around the vents. So I understand that all too well.

[Gwaithmir]

I suffer from occasional dry skin, but it's probably due more to old age than the relative humidity. I have to rub Jergens Lotion on my feet, calves and hands about once a week.

[Dom]

I have a lot of houseplants. It seems to have helped the issue. I have been using plain Nivea on my face for decades though, since I do have very dry skin in my face.

The air in my house is fine though, air that is too dry can trigger asthma so I watch it. I use a swamp cooler in summer, and that adds moisture when the air is truly dry in these here parts.

[Minimalist]

I live in a desert.

What's humidity?

[Cavebear]

I live in a desert.

What's humidity?

ΔH=mH2O/Vnet

Or Absolute humidity, the vapor concentration or density in the air. If mv is the mass of vapor in a volume of air, then absolute humidity, or dv, is simply dv = mv/ V, in which V is the volume and dv is expressed in grams per cubic meter.

Did that help?

[Astreja]

My skin is mostly okay except on my hands. I could probably sand hardwood with my fingers, and currently my right thumb is bandaged due to a split in a callus near the tip. (It could be related to the fact that I use my right thumb to hold my clarinet, but this only happens in the wintertime.)

This is, however, the best my hands have been in at least five years, with very few cuts and cracks. Relative humidity in the living room regularly hovers at about 15% as soon as the furnace kicks on, and stays that way all winter. One major change this year is that the plant population of the household has gone up. A lot. There are half a dozen new plants on the main floor, and more upstairs.

[Minimalist]

Did that help?

Not in the least!

[c172]

Cool numbers and symbols, though. I always liked those growing up.

[Chas]

My skin is mostly okay except on my hands.  I could probably sand hardwood with my fingers, and currently my right thumb is bandaged due to a split in a callus near the tip.  (It could be related to the fact that I use my right thumb to hold my clarinet, but this only happens in the wintertime.)

This is, however, the best my hands have been in at least five years, with very few cuts and cracks.  Relative humidity in the living room regularly hovers at about 15% as soon as the furnace kicks on, and stays that way all winter.  One major change this year is that the plant population of the household has gone up.  A lot.  There are half a dozen new plants on the main floor, and more upstairs.

I used to get terrible cracking on my fingers.  Since I have upped the humidity and use Working Hands® when I'm outside for anything other than getting in and out of the car, no cracks. None. Nada. Nil. Zip.

[Fireball]

I'm putting on hand lotion atm. As I age, my skin cracks more with cold and dry weather. It's not that cold, currently, but it's dry as a bone around here in southern California. And WINDY.

[Dom]

My skin is mostly okay except on my hands.  I could probably sand hardwood with my fingers, and currently my right thumb is bandaged due to a split in a callus near the tip.  (It could be related to the fact that I use my right thumb to hold my clarinet, but this only happens in the wintertime.)

This is, however, the best my hands have been in at least five years, with very few cuts and cracks.  Relative humidity in the living room regularly hovers at about 15% as soon as the furnace kicks on, and stays that way all winter.  One major change this year is that the plant population of the household has gone up.  A lot.  There are half a dozen new plants on the main floor, and more upstairs.

Have you tried a collagen supplement? They work wonders.

[Astreja]

Have you tried a collagen supplement? They work wonders.

It definitely sounds worth trying - thanks for the tip!

[Astreja]

I used to get terrible cracking on my fingers.  Since I have upped the humidity and use Working Hands® when I'm outside for anything other than getting in and out of the car, no cracks. None. Nada. Nil. Zip.

I've used Working Hands in the past but currently am using a colloidal oatmeal lotion on my hands because it's less messy.  (It's a pain when you slide right off a computer keyboard, or wind up with weird glop all over the clarinet keys.)  I'm currently using the same company's foot cream, and it's pretty good stuff.

[Dancefortwo]

I've always had oily skin so my skin never dries out but I do have something called "dry sinus" which comes from decades of sinus problems stemming from a broken nose as a kid causing a dveiated septum.  I also have a lot of allergies.  So I got my deviated septum fixed and had 5 years of allergy shots, all helping the problem but I'm still left with the dry sinus situation. 

When I get a cold or allergies I never get a runny, stopped up nose.   It's really weird.   Sometimes I get a dry sinus headache and want to shoot myself in the head to get some relief.  It's really painful.   Anyway, I keep a humidifier going all the time and it helps a lot.  

.........ahhhhhh........

[Bucky Ball]

"Is your skin dry ?"

It sounds like a question that Clouseau would ask.

[Inkubus]

No skin problem with low humidity, more of a potential heart problem. My telly is a big old CRT thing that thinks its a Van Der Graaf generator, you can't go near the bastard.

[mordant]

As i have aged, my hands and occasionally feet have gotten dry and/or itchy. My go-to has always been Aveeno, an oat-based lotion that does wonders for such things.

Diabetes probably plays into it as well. I have to be careful not to start itching one foot with the other in my sleep, etc., and putting some Aveeno on the offending spot always settles it down.

You can buy the stuff in little pocket-sized bottles too, so I always have some with me in my jacket in case of need.

[Free]

Probably.  The relative humidity in your house or workplace is likely the reason.

For instance, this morning here in eastern MA, the temperature is 11°F  with RH 37%.

Bring that air inside and heat it to 72°F, the RH will be 3.47%.  That's drier than any desert on  Earth.

I've been boiling water and managed to get the RH up to 35%.  A healthy indoor RH is 30% - 60%.

Yep, and it make me itch so bad in bed that I got a small humidifier for the bedroom. It's a bit better now.