• Eat your water. Your family’s diet can help keep skin moisturized from the inside out. Serve up plenty of water-rich fruits and veggies, plus cooked grains, suggests herbalist Christopher Hobbs.
• Turn down the heat. Since very hot water can strip skin of its natural oils, keep the water at a slightly lower temperature during baths and showers.
• Turn up the steam. Investing in a household humidifier will bring moisture to dry indoor air.
• Go au naturel. The sulfates in many conventional shampoos and conditioners can wash the oils in your scalp right out, leaving you with dry, itchy skin. Instead, turn to all-natural shampoos and conditioners. To get rid of flakes and dandruff, Hobbs suggests soaking fresh or dried rosemary in olive oil, then working half a teaspoon of the mixture into your scalp for some homemade relief.
• Rub it in. Dry skin already a problem? Slather on coconut butter for heavy-duty moisture, or try chamomile cream, a favorite of Hobbs’s because of its anti-inflammatory properties and its lightness (it’s water-based, which makes it less heavy duty than its oil-based counterparts).

Reprinted from KIWI Magazine