If your skin is worse indoors than outdoors in winter, the furnace is the reason. Heating cold air without adding water to it produces indoor humidity in the teens, which is drier than a lot of deserts.
Why heating air dries it
Cold air holds very little water. Warm it up and its capacity to hold water rises sharply, but no water has been added, so the relative humidity collapses. A house at 70 degrees running on 20 degree outside air can easily sit at 15 to 20% relative humidity. Comfortable for a human is roughly 40 to 50%.
Everything in the room then gives up moisture to the air until it balances, including your skin, your lips and the inside of your nose. Forced air makes it worse than radiant heat because it also moves the air across you constantly, and moving air evaporates faster than still air.
Signs it is the house and not you
- Worse in the morning after a night indoors than after a day outside.
- Static shocks off door handles and laundry.
- Wood floors or trim gapping in winter and closing up in summer.
- Waking with a dry mouth or a nosebleed.
- Houseplants needing water far more often.
What to do about the room
- A humidifier in the bedroom. Eight uninterrupted hours is the single biggest win, and a bedroom is a small volume to raise.
- Aim for 40 to 45%, not higher. Much above 50 in winter and you get condensation on windows and, eventually, mould.
- A cheap hygrometer, so you are managing a number rather than a feeling. They cost almost nothing.
- Lower the thermostat a degree or two. Less heating is less drying.
- Whole-house humidifier on the furnace if you are in it for the long run.
What to do about your skin
Something that absorbs and something that seals, which is what a tallow and beeswax balm is. Applied on damp skin after a shower, and again before bed on hands. In a dry house a water-based lotion largely evaporates, which is why it feels like it stopped working in December.
See also winter dry skin and cracked hands.
Made by hand in small batches in Wakarusa, Indiana. Seven ingredients, and 5% of every sale goes to FreedomSystem, which connects veterans through authentic camaraderie and meaningful programs.
